EU member states support mass balance approach: EC

EU member states are largely in line to support the mass balance accounting fuel-use excluded definition for defining recycled content percentage, and are likely to support these definitions going forwards, according to the team leader on plastics at the European Commission, Werner Bosmans.

Bosmans, speaking at the Plastics Recycling Show Europe (PRSE) in Amsterdam, said there will be a public consultation on the definition of mass balance accounting soon, probably in the summer. The definition for mass balance was approved by the EU parliament in April when ministers overturned an objection from the EU environment committee. Most EU member states are now broadly in favour of the definition with third-party verification, Bosmans added. A defined approach for mass balance accounting would help to lend transparency to policy for recyclers.

Further investment in the recycling sector was needed, Bosmans said, in order to increase capacity and he said that the commission viewed "mechanical recycling as better than chemical recycling and chemical recycling as better than incineration". While there may be a focus on different types of recycling technology, Bosmans said that focus should be "not about how much of the cake is a certain technology, but the size of the cake overall", when discussing supply in Europe for recycled content. The EC reasoning for this view was that mechanical recycling caused less environmental damage than other methods, Bosmans added.

Bosmans said it appeared likely that EU member states would hit 2025 targets set out in the Single Use Plastics Directive (SUPD) legislation for all PET bottles produced to contain 25pc of recycled content, and 2030 targets of 30pc recycled content for PET bottles. Bosmans also spoke of figures that plastic recycling was 13 times more likely to happen when separate collections of waste at a consumer level were implemented, highlighting the importance of collection for the value chain.

By George Barsted