More mechanical recycling in Europe

On September 21, addressing the Polytalk summit in Wiesbaden (Germany) organised by PlasticsEurope, in consideration of the resources devoted by member states to waste-to-energy solutions, European Commissioner for the Environment Janez Potočnik called for a greater increase in mechanical recycling.
As well as offering this general guideline to all the EU states, Potočnik appealed to countries such as Germany, Austria, Sweden and Denmark where the mean proportion of waste recycled in energy recovery plants is 64% - too high compared with the share destined for mechanical recycling.
Potočnik also spoke about the production of biodegradable plastic bags, which cannot be seen as a real solution to the problem of reducing the amount of disposable shopping bags on the market. In addition to the fact that they are often incompatible with existing recycling systems, causing severe damage if they are unwittingly allowed to enter plants, there also concerns over both the true degradability of these bags - they appear to degrade only in certain conditions - and the threat they represent to the marine environment.