Transcript Kein Folientitel

European and domestic experiences in the collection
of packaging waste
Budapest, February 24, 2009
Overview about the situation in Europe
Joachim Quoden
General Manager
Deposit Systems in Europe
Sweden
Finland
Norway
Estonia
Denmark
Netherlands
Germany
Deposit systems in Europe
 Finland, Denmark, Iceland: No household collection of other




packaging
Netherlands: The deposit system will be stopped if industry
collects a certain % of plastic bottles until 2012
Sweden + Norway: Deposit systems started a long time before
the household collection system
Germany: Plastic recycling figures are going down since many
years, so in total plastic packaging, no increase because of the
deposit
Scandinavia: Monopoly approach of deposit system versus
competitive approach in Germany
Progress towards the EU recycling targets: 2006 recycling rates
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Latvia
Bulgaria
Poland
Malta
Romania
Cyprus
Slovakia
Lithuania
Slovenia
Estonia
Belgium
Austria
Germany
Luxembourg
Netherlands
UK
Sweden
Denmark
Italy
France
Spain
Finland
Ireland
Portugal
Greece
Czech Republic
Hungary
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
Target deadline 2008
The Environmental Aspect
 Recovery Rates
 Countries with mandatory deposit systems do not have higher recovery
rates than countries with household collection systems for all kind of
packaging
 Resource Consumption
 As the collection system for other packaging arising at households has to
be continued, an additional transport system has to be established
 Littering
 As beverage containers represent only a small part of littered items the
problem of littering is not solved
 Education of people, enough containers for waste and adequate fines
and monitoring are tools which help much more successful for all kinds of
littered items
Littering- problem solved because of deposit?
The Environmental Aspect
 Consumers Willingness to separate waste
 Adding an additional stream to sort leads to frustration of the consumer
and will decrease his motivation to sort his waste
 Protection of the refillable sector
 Mandatory deposit systems for one way beverage containers do not
protect the refillable sector
 In Sweden and Denmark the one way sector is gaining market share
year by year
 In Germany the refillable quota for water and soft drinks dropped to less
than 30% although it should have been raised to about 72%
 Producer Responsibility
 The involvement of the producers and fillers of packaging in a
compliance scheme for the take back and recycling of all kinds of
packaging leads to incentives for prevention and optimisation of
packaging whereas such incentives do not exist in a deposit system
The Economic Aspect
 Increased costs for industry and the consumer
 Existing systems for the collection become more expensive as they
collect less packaging but have to have the same infrastructure
 Mandatory deposit systems are 2 – 3 times more costly for such
packaging than a household collection system
 The deposit that the consumer has to pay to the retailer cannot be for
consumption
 Effects to the market
 Cans have been taken out of the market in Germany
 Smaller retailers have much more problems to run such a system
because of missing space and missing money for reverse vending
machines
 Separate kinds of packaging have to be developped for each country
where a deposit system exisits
 Economical Winners
 Producers of reverse vending machines
Costs for each packaging
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Can Alu
0,33 l
Can Steel
0,33 l
Dänemark - Deposit
Austria - Kerbside
PET bottle Glass bottle
0,5 l
0,5 l
Norwegen - Deposit
Belgium - Kerbside
Conditions how to implement a deposit system
 European Commission will publish within the next weeks a
„Communication on deposit systems“ to give guidelines for member states
as most of the court cases are because of the introduction of a deposit system
 Obstacles to the free movement of goods
 MDS are likely to be obstacles to import. They are therefore only legal where
the benefits to the environment are clear and proportionate.
 Constant difficulties in boarder areas (Denmark/Germany; Finland/Estonia)
 Availibility
 MS that introduce MDS must make sure that there are systems in place to
which importers can easily accede in order to comply with their obligations
 Transition
 There need to be sufficient transition periods to give operators and in particular
importers time to efficiently adapt their way of doing business to the new
scheme
Conditions how to implement a deposit system
 Non-discriminatory access
 Any system must provide for non-discriminatory access for all
fillers, retailers and other players that have obligations under the
scheme
 Fees need to be reasonable, proportianate and non-discriminatory
 No exchange of sensitive information
 Legislators and market participants must ensure that an MDS does
not lead to artificial market transparancy by exchanging sensitive
information between competing retailers, fillers etc
 No exclusivity
 Customers must not be prevented from joining competing schemes
 Scandinavian monopolistic approach questionable in the future
 No tying
 Tying of additional services to the operation of the deposit scheme
can raise serious concerns
Is there an alternative?
 Identification of your environmental goals
 Identification which ways might lead to fulfil these
environmental goals
 Agreement with all stakeholders on these goals
 Freedom to industry to decide for the way to reach these
environmental goals
 We believe that household collection for ALL kinds of
packaging are the better solution from an economic AND
ecologic point of view
Membership 2008
Iceland
Sweden
Great Britain
Norway
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Canada
Ireland
Portugal
Spain
Finland
Netherlands
Germany Poland
Belgium
Czech
Ukraine
Luxembourg
Republic
Austria Slovakia
France
Hungary
Slovenia
Romania
Croatia
Bulgaria
Greece
Malta
Turkey
Cyprus
Facts and Figures (2007/2009)

31 compliance schemes active in 31 countries in 2009 of which 25 use the
Green Dot

About 140,000 companies are licensees / members of the PRO EUROPE
member systems

More than 460 billion packaging items have been labeled with the Green Dot

More than 565 million inhabitants live in PRO EUROPE member countries

More than 310 million inhabitants have access to separate collection of PRO
EUROPE member systems

More than 22,100,000 tons of packaging have been recovered by PRO
EUROPE member systems in 2007

More than 1,800,000 tons of plastic packaging have been recycled by PRO
EUROPE member systems in 2007
We do not believe in deposit ! Kerbside is the better way !
Mandatory deposit systems







Lack clear envirnomental or economic justification
Introduce distortions to the Internal Market
Have negative effects on consumers general willingness to sort their
packaging
Damage the viability of existing proven and optimised system of collection and
recycling of ALL kinds of packaging
Lead to an increase of environmental pollution
Are an ineffective approach towards the littering problem
No higher collection quotas for all kinds of plastic packaging from households
Therefore, we would question the imposition of mandatory deposit
systems on one way packaging and suggest that producers and
compliance organisations should be offered the freedom to meet
recycling targets in the most appropriate manner for each member state
without endangering the functioning of the internal market.