31 Jul EU Plastic Tax: Investment for the future?
During the extraordinary meeting of the European Council ended last week, it was reached an agreement regarding the new EU Plastics Tax, which aims to damage non-recycled plastic packaging waste and whose application is expected to start on January the 1st, 2021, as a part of “Europe System” new income.
The approved text mentions as follows: “[…] a new own resource will be introduced and applied from the 1st of January 2021, consisting of a share of revenues from a national contribution and calculated on the basis of the weight of non-recycled plastic packaging waste, with a rate of 0.80 € per kilogram and with a mechanism aimed at avoiding excessively regressive effects on national contributions.”
Following this initiative, a group of about forty European associations belonging to the packaging and packaging materials industry has signed an open letter addressed to European and national authorities, requesting that the revenues from the tax should be specifically used to support the real circularity of the packaging life-cycle and enhance the infrastructures for the correct management of packaging waste.
The signatory associations of this document share and agree with the objectives set in the European Green Deal, among which the intention to make all packaging reusable or recyclable by 2030 stands out, but specify that introducing new or additional tax measures is not an effective method to achieve such objectives, as it can actually constitute a real obstacle for member countries in their implementation of a real circular economy, aimed at improving an efficient waste management system at European level.
The signed document therefore aims to highlight that, to achieve the objective, the commitment of the companies involved in the packaging supply chain is not sufficient: it is necessary the real commitment of the whole System, in which the choices made by the European Commission have a certain weight.
As a Company operating in the sector, we support this line of thought, as we believe there is an actual need for effective investments by all actors involved, both public and private, national and European, in order to achieve the goals set by the Green Deal by the year 2030.