On the 3rd of July 2021, the European Union's Single-Use Plastics Directive (SUPD) came into force. Its objective? To reduce pollution from plastic products made for single use.
Read on to learn more about the Directive and how it can push the transition to a more sustainable use of plastic.
DIRECTIVE (EU) 2019/904
The so-called European Directive on the reduction of the impact of certain plastic products on the environment tackles various topics. Let’s look at the main ones here:
1.Recognition of (some kind) plastic waste as an issue.
In the directive, the European Commission indicates that the steady increase in plastic waste generation and the leakage of plastic waste into the environment must be tackled in order to achieve a circular life cycle for plastics.
In the Union, 80 to 85 % of marine litter, measured as beach litter counts, is plastic, with single-use plastic items representing 50 % and fishing-related items representing 27 % of the total. The commission recognizes that “single-use plastic products include a diverse range of commonly used fast-moving consumer products that are discarded after having been used once for the purpose for which they were provided, are rarely recycled, and are prone to becoming litter.”
According to the document, retaining the value of products and materials for as long as possible and generating less waste, can make the economy of the Union more competitive and more resilient, while reducing pressure on precious resources and the environment.
2. Product bans.
To focus efforts where they are most needed, the Directive includes bans on those single-use plastic products that are found the most on beaches in the Union as well as fishing gear containing plastic and products made from oxo-degradable plastic. The single-use plastic products covered by the Directive are estimated to represent around 86 % of the single-use plastics found, in counts, on beaches in the Union.
Nonetheless, the definition of single-use plastic excludes plastic products that are “conceived, designed and placed on the market to accomplish within their life span multiple trips or rotations by being refilled or re-used for the same purpose for which they are conceived.”
Article 5 of the SUPD indicates that items like cotton bud sticks, cutlery (forks, knives, spoons, chopsticks), plates, straws, stirrers, balloon sticks, oxo-degradable plastics and expanded polystyrene (EPS) food containers and cups will be banned in the European Union from 2021.
3. Minimum recycled content requirements.
In order to ensure the circular use of plastics, the market uptake of recycled materials needs to be promoted. As a consequence, the Directive introduced requirements for a mandatory minimum content of recycled plastic in beverage bottles. In particular, Article 6 sets out a target for manufacturers to use 25% recycled content in PET beverage bottles by 2025 and 30% in all plastic beverage bottles by 2030. In addition, by 2024 container caps and lids should be designed to remain attached to the container during its lifetime, to reduce their dispersion and increase their recycling.
4. EPR OBLIGATIONS.
With regard to single-use plastic products for which no suitable and more sustainable alternatives are readily available, the document indicates that member States should introduce extended producer responsibility schemes to cover the necessary costs of waste management and clean-up of litter as well as the costs of awareness-raising measures to prevent and reduce such litter.
The directive also tackles discarded fishing gear – the deadliest kind of plastic out there – stating that: “as plastic components of fishing gear have high recycling potential, Member States should introduce extended producer responsibility for fishing gear and components of fishing gear containing plastic to ensure separate collection of waste fishing gear and to finance environmentally sound waste management of waste fishing gear, in particular recycling”
(if you are not sure about what EPR is, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Click here.)
5. Collection targets.
One of the reasons why single-use plastic beverages are one of the most found items on beaches in the Union is because of the ineffective separate collection systems and low participation in those systems by consumers. Hence why the Commission declared it is necessary to promote more effective separate collection systems and decided to establish minimum separate collection target for beverage bottles that are single-use plastic products. In detail, targets for the collection of plastic beverage bottles are described in Article 9, requiring member states to separately collect 77% of single-use plastic bottles with caps and lids by 2025, with an ultimate target of 90% by 2029.
CONCLUSION
The EU Directive is likely the most complete of its kind worldwide. It comes as a natural conclusion (or beginning?) after years of discussions around the topic and after the publication of the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy prepared by the Commission and adopted in January 2018.
It marks the beginning of an era where single-use plastic waste is finally recognized as a local as well as a global issue that needs to be addressed. At the same time, it raises the bar for countries like China and the United States that will hopefully follow the measures soon, to make sure we really achieve a circular economy for plastic before it’s too late.
