EU vote on PPWR: common sense and scientific approach prevail

With the approval of the amendments on the new Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), the European Parliament's vote on Wednesday 22 November 2023 goes in the desired direction, having accepted the proposals made forward by Italy - a leader in Europe for waste recycling capacity - on the most controversial issues of the regulation.

In detail, the European Parliament voted in favour of the exemption from the prohibitions established in the regulation on the basis of life-cycle assessment and separate collection; the exemption of some disposable items intended for the HoReCa sector (Italy produces most of the cups and recyclable materials); the definition of composite packaging, high-quality recycling and recyclability (to avoid unjustified production stops for a number of product types). In general, these amendments have stopped the original idea of promoting reuse over recycling.

In this phase, therefore, common sense and an approach based on scientific data have prevailed, but operators are still waiting for the next decisions, as the legislative process is not yet over.

In fact, other decisive steps will follow, starting with the scrutiny of the EU Council, which will meet on 18 December 2023 in view of the discussions at the trilogue level. 

In the last year, Amaplast and Ucima, together with Confindustria and other trade associations, have worked to submit the industry’s requests in Rome to the MEPs sitting in the various committees focused on the effects of the regulation, and together with Europen (the European Organization for Packaging and the Environment) have organized several targeted meetings with the MEPs of all parties. All this to safeguard an industrial system that brings advantages from an environmental and economic point of view.