The EU Parliament voted in favor of stricter packaging rules, with more recycling and reuse, but rejected excessive intervention in the catering industry, for example.
Strasbourg/Vienna. The bag of sugar from the cafeteria and the packets of pepper and salt from the restaurant can stay. The EU Parliament rejected such sweeping proposals from the EU Commission to reduce packaging waste on Wednesday. But what’s coming are uniform packaging rules that reduce single-use packaging and increase the recycling rate.
Action is needed because the mountain of packaging waste continues to grow, despite previous measures taken in Member States. While in 2010 each EU citizen produced 154 kilograms of packaging waste per year, in 2021 the figure was already 189 kilograms. The EU Parliament and EU governments must now agree on a common position. It is not expected to come into effect before 2025.