Conflict over EU plastic bag ban
The GERMAN Association for Plastic Packaging and Films (Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen), has issued a strongly worded statement in response to EU-Commissioner Potocnik’s aims for a ban of carrier bags made from conventional plastics.
The EU commission is currently running a Europe-wide survey that contains incomprehensible claims in explanation. Each and every EU citizen is supposed to be using up to 850 plastic bags per year, however, no statistical proof for this is given. This inadequate knowledge is demonstrated by EU experts assuming that a plastic bag rapidly degrades in nature, therefore demanding a differentiation between biodegradability and compostability.
The EU commission does not seem to be aware of the fact that currently, there are no plastic bags available that dissolve within a short period of time in nature without any outside influences. On the contrary, these plastic bags only dissolve in the course of a specific industrial composting process. This raises the question whether the term biodegradability should be defined more precisely. The EU survey is unstructured and is clearly intended to be a precursor to a Europe-wide ban of plastic carrier bags in order to avoid waste. The EU commission’s knowledge of the waste issue is inadequate. Plastic carrier bags commonly consist of high quality, pure recyclable polyethylene. Therefore, the polyethylene bag is not a waste product after use, but a valuable raw material. One prerequisite is, however, that it is correctly collected within recycling systems. For this purpose, the EU has developed a packaging directive, specifying corresponding quotas for collection and recycling.
The implementation of this regulation should be checked thoroughly by Brussels. Germany has got a collection and recycling system that works excellently. Over 90 percent of plastic bags are collected and recycled correspondingly. The recycling share of plastic bags is continuously increasing. A possible ban would punish those countries that have previously been model implementers of the EU packaging directive. The ban of conventional plastic bags in Italy has shown that the Italian government is not capable of guaranteeing a proper disposal and recycling system. With the exclusive permission of so-called biodegradable materials, the message to the population is: ‘Go on as you did before, just throw used plastic bags away.’ This approach is counter-productive. By privileging so-called biodegradable materials, the EU commission is promoting the idea that it is ‘Ok to throw away bags without having a guilty conscience.’
Education is the key. We only can protect the environment and save resources if we collect as many products as possible and recycle them. Europe’s population should be made aware of this. In addition, plastic bags can be used several times without any problems. They are commonly reused packages and eventually often end up as bin bags. This use immediately contributes to a reduction. In Germany, the consumer usually pays a fee covering the cost for disposal and recycling.
Therefore, a ban of plastic bags made from conventional polyethylene or a legally required reduction is not the right way forward. We urge the people in charge within the EU commission to objectively evaluate the fact and to refrain from purely populist measures. Finally we would like to establish that, irrespectively of degradability, a fair open market competition between plastic carrier bags made from conventional plastic and those of renewable resources is perfectly desirable.
IK:
T: +49 (0) 6172-92 66 68