Fifteen European countries sign pact: all plastic recyclable by 2025
Fifteen European countries sign pact: all plastic recyclable by 2025
06-03-20 nu.nl
In five years’ time, all the plastic we use every day should be recyclable or reusable, says 15 European countries and 66 companies. They will sign the so-called European Plastic Pact in March 2020.
The goals of the Plastic Pact:
- Make plastic packaging fully recyclable and recyclable where possible
- Reduce unnecessary plastic use and use of petroleum-derived plastic by at least 20 percent
- Improve current collection, sorting and recycling capacity by at least 25 percent
- Use at least 30 percent recycled plastic in new packaging and products
The pact consists of agreements between plastics producers, large companies, governments and recycling companies. The signatories, including the Dutch and French governments, must achieve ambitious targets for reducing plastic waste by 2025.
Minister Stientje van Veldhoven (Environment) will present the plan on Friday in Brussels. “If we want to achieve the climate targets of Paris, we have to look not only at clean energy but also at clean raw materials,” she explains. “I think we should be able to reuse every little bit of plastic in the future and thus keep it out of our oceans and environment”.
According to Van Veldhoven, for the first time so many different parties – “from supermarkets to governments” – are committed to reuse and recycling. She devised the pact together with the French and Danish environment ministers, after which more countries and companies became enthused.
Every year, the progress of the participating countries and companies in meeting the targets is monitored. It is also examined whether the pact can contribute to a European plastics policy based on the European Green Deal. This contains agreements to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050.
Non-EU countries such as Norway and the United Kingdom have also signed up to the pact.