The proposal aims to target some of the ‘10 most found items of litter on EU beaches’, including fishing gear.
The seven measures to be applied to different types of single use plastic items, as defined by the European Commission, are:
- Significant consumption reductions for food and beverage service packaging
- Mandatory bans on cotton buds, cutlery, plates, straws, beverage stirrers, and balloon sticks
- Product design requirements to ensure that caps/lids stay attached to beverage containers in 'use phase'
- Marking or labelling requirements on disposal options, environmental impact and presence of plastics for sanitary towels (pads), tampons and tampon applicators, wet wipes, and balloons
- Extended producer responsibility for a range of specific single use plastics items (to cover the cost of collection and treatment, awareness raising, and litter clean-up) and fishing gear (to cover the cost of collection and treatment, and awareness raising)
- A 90% collection target for plastic bottles by 2025 via deposit return schemes or green dot schemes
- Member states will be required to run awareness-raising measures regarding the environmental impact of single use plastics products, littering and other inappropriate disposal of single use plastics products
The proposal contains mandatory food hygiene and food safety criteria for member states developing measures. They will also have to collect market data for the food and beverage service packaging that is subject to the consumption reduction measures and share this with the EU.
The proposal will be considered by the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers (the 28 EU member countries) who will jointly decide on the final text.
The content is likely to be agreed within 10 months, before the May 2019 European Parliament elections.
Clean Europe Network says it is disappointing that the Commission has remained silent on the recently revised EU litter policy, based on a shared responsibility approach.