Revision of the packaging and packaging waste directive
24/05/2023Valipac welcomes the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) initiative of the European Commission to put clear quantitative goals in reducing packaging waste, to strive towards harmonization across Europe, and to further promote circularity as a business model for packaging.
Since 1998 Valipac is the Belgian not-for-profit eco-system acting as collective answer to the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for Commercial and Industrial Packaging (C&I), covering the large majority of the Belgian industry (85 % market coverage). Valipac today already reaches higher C&I recycling rates in Belgium than the PPWR proposes for 2030 in Europe. Valipac’s ambition is to go even further in recycling and circularity, but the PPWR poses severe threats to its model. Unless the text is amended, the PPWR will provoke some detrimental unintended effects in recycling-levels and circularity for C&I-packaging in Belgium, thus impacting Belgium as European leader in circularity. Valipac aims to maintain the current ecosystem in Belgium in order to be able to retain higher levels of recycling and circularity than the PPWR aims for.