{"id":50191,"date":"2018-02-16T07:35:04","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T06:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=50191"},"modified":"2018-02-14T16:29:05","modified_gmt":"2018-02-14T15:29:05","slug":"the-fight-on-plastics-heats-up-in-the-eu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/the-fight-on-plastics-heats-up-in-the-eu\/","title":{"rendered":"The fight on plastics heats up in the EU"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo credits: Charles Henry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Italy and Greece new measures against the use and production of plastic bags have been taken, while the EU Commission announced a \u201cplastic tax<\/a>\u201d to cover the Brexit budget hole, less than\u00a0one week after launching a comprehensive \u201cPlastics Strategy<\/a>\u201d. Moreover, China has banned imports of plastic waste (it was the world\u2019s dominant importer) destined for recycling, putting the EU in a difficult position<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Italians and Greeks have actually not been happy with the new laws, social media raged against them<\/a>, for different reasons.<\/p>\n

Italy has always been a pioneer in fighting plastic bag pollution: the first attempt to impose a tax to importers and producers on non-biodegradable products dates to as far back as 1988. It didn\u2019t last, but since then a number of laws have been passed in order to gradually reduce the consumption of non-biodegradable shopping bags.<\/p>\n

Now Italy is imposing the use of biodegradable bags for food like fruits and vegetables, with a small charge (not specified in the law) to discourage collecting and wasting them. A good law, according to NGO\u2019s, except for a not-so-small detail: implementation.<\/p>\n

Consumers are not allowed to bring and use their own reusable bags, for hygiene reasons. This ban, explains Giuseppe Ungherese from Greenpeace Italy, is not actually included in the law itself, but in a note from the Ministry of\u00a0the Environment: a \u201cbureaucratic short-circuit that can be easily corrected\u201d, says Ungherese.<\/p>\n

No wonder the Italians are furious: they now have to pay for something that was free before – well not quite, because the price was included and hidden in their purchases \u2013 and the ban itself goes against the spirit of the law on biodegradable bags and the associated EU directive<\/a>. Basically the ban becomes counterproductive.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften bags are labelled as biodegradable but it is not true since they only biodegrade under controlled conditions (temperature, humidity etc.). In the natural environment, they do not readily break down,\u201d says Kevin Stairs from Greenpeace Europe in Brussels, Belgium. Moreover, \u201csome companies add oxidising substances so that the bags break down faster. But these are said<\/a> to make the problem worse as they create unbiodegradable microplastics,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

This is why environmentalists in Italy are pressuring the government. \u201cWe are collecting evidence on the use of reusable bags in other EU countries to see if any hygiene issues have been raised and to check out any solutions provided,\u201d says Enzo Favoino from Zero Waste Europe.<\/p>\n

In France, for instance, consumers are certainly allowed to use their own bags. Moreover, in some supermarkets the \u201cplastic problem\u201d has been solved by introducing paper bags for fruit and vegetables.<\/p>\n

In Belgium too, right on the European Commission\u2019s doorstep, shoppers can buy loose, unwrapped fruit. For example, a customer could take a lemon without using a plastic bag, pay for it at the cash desk and then put it in his or her own reusable bag. This could – and should, say NGOs – be possible also in Italy.<\/p>\n

The UK government also has recently announced new measures to encourage the use of reusable bags. Larger shops already charge 5 pence for single-use plastic carrier bags. Now London intends to extend the scheme to businesses with less than 250 employees<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Greek case is completely different. Until December 2017, all kinds of plastic bags were given away for free. Now this is no longer the case<\/a>, and consumers are not happy. \u201cGreek people love plastic bags, they do everything with them, from shopping to fixing a broken window,\u201d explains Maria Psara, a Greek journalist based in Brussels. That is why a small revolution has broken out in the country, while environmentalists think the new legislation doesn\u2019t go far enough.<\/p>\n

Right in the middle of this European turmoil, on 16 January the EU Commission announced its Plastics Strategy, with an ambitious goal: to make sure that all plastic packaging is reusable or recyclable by 2030.<\/p>\n

How realistic is it? \u201cThe Strategy may have good intentions but it\u2019s worth nothing for now – according to Meadhbh Bolger from Friends of the Earth Europe. – What matters is the coming months and years. We need to see concrete legislation addressing plastic pollution, and most importantly, legislation to slash the amount plastic we produce and consume, especially single use plastic and unnecessary packaging\u201d. With the variety of legislations<\/a> currently in force throughout Europe, it is not going to be an easy task.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Italy and Greece new measures against the use and production of plastic bags have been taken, while the EU Commission announced a \u201cplastic tax\u201d to cover the Brexit budget hole, less than\u00a0one week after launching a comprehensive \u201cPlastics Strategy\u201d. Moreover, China has banned imports of plastic waste (it was the world\u2019s dominant importer) destined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[11270,12383],"supplier":[2317,228,12474,3334,13099],"class_list":["post-50191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biodegradability","tag-plasticbags","supplier-european-commission","supplier-friends-of-the-earth-europe","supplier-italian-ministry-of-the-environment-land-and-sea-imels","supplier-uk-government","supplier-zero-waste-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50191"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=50191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}