Statement on the calculation of recycling targets

CEWEP joins recyclers to stress the importance of waste hierarchy in calculating recycling targets.

The co-signatories have been made aware that the Council of the European Union is considering the inclusion of activities in the provisions to measure recycling targets which either have nothing to do with recycling or result in the production of low quality waste materials. This inclusion, if endorsed, would enable to count as recycled waste materials which are not recycled and hence artificially increase recycling rates. In other words, such rules would enable in practice to cheat on the achievement of recycling targets, encourage poor quality recycling and annihilate the benefits of ambitious recycling rates. From a legal view, they would contradict the waste hierarchy first laid down by European legislation in the original directive 1975/442/EEC of 15 July 1975 on waste.

Latest articles in this category