CIAA COMMENTS ON THE ECOLAS / PIRA INTERIM REPORT

This document summarizes the comments made by CIAA, the voice of the European food and drink industry, following the expert workshop held on 26 May and the analysis of the Ecolas/Pira interim report.

CIAA welcomes the opportunity to comment on this report, as we believe that the on- going stakeholder dialogue can significantly refine and improve the study on the implementation of the Packaging & Packaging Waste Directive carried out by the Ecolas and Pira consultants on behalf of DG Environment.

GENERAL COMMENTS ON THE METHODOLOGY

Although the interim report constitutes a starting point for the study, there are some concerns about the methodology chosen:

- A study on the implementation of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive is a complex exercise, with many environmental, economic and geographic implications. The differing nature of each Member State, both from a geophysical, socio-demographic and environmental point of view (different experience in selective collection, different legal obligations of the stakeholders involved, etc.) makes it even more complex. Therefore, we can understand that the consultants have started by assuming some basic premises, which simplify the analysis, although some of them might be argued against (See p. 6 - Paragraph on key assumptions where it is decided to ignore transportation relating to collection, to assume that all plastics recycling is PET recycling, etc.).

While trying to simplify the analysis, we should not however adopt a simplistic approach. Now, with these key assumptions, the consultants tend to ignore the reality of the packaging market giving too much attention on two specific materials: glass and plastics (with a unique focus on PET!). CIAA would welcome a broader approach with a detailed analysis of ALL packaging materials (for instance for the plastics, the analysis should not be restricted to PET only but should also include the plastic films).

- To assess the environmental and economic impacts of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive 94/62, the availability of accurate data is crucial. Naturally if the measurement of the economic and environmental impacts is based on existing studies, then their inherent flaws will be repeated with the risk to come to misleading conclusions (see p. 5 section 1-2-1 and p. 13 section 1-3-5). Besides, the authors should be extremely cautious while extrapolating existing studies that have been carried out some time ago for another purpose.

- The social aspect is so far being neglected in the report although it was agreed to follow a sustainable approach to evaluate the implementation of the PPWD. In the

same way, to ensure the sustainable approach, the impacts of the Directive on the Internal Market should also be taken into consideration. CIAA understands that this aspect will be covered in another study carried out by DG Enterprise but we regret that both studies are not developed in synchronization.

TASK 1: EVALUATION OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PACKAGING DIRECTIVE 94/62/EC

INTRODUCTION

It is important to note that the generation of packaging waste per capita has been decreasing - and not growing, as mentioned in the introduction (p.4) – at the EU 15 level, in 2001 vs. 2000. It is particularly the case for the UK, Austria, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Germany and Belgium.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

* From an environmental point of view, it seems clear that the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive has brought an improvement in the management of packaging waste in Europe. The targets were the same for all packaging material and it has led to the development of selective collection with the same level of requirements for all materials.

* Among the 3 scenarios used to assess the environmental impact of the Directive, the “zero recycling” scenario has no real interest. Due to the low budget and tight timetable for this project, the consultants should rather focus on scenarios 2 and 3. For the “baseline policy” scenario (2), it is necessary to clarify what elements are taken into consideration or not. Besides, CIAA has some reservations regarding the modelling of this scenario that has to be based on estimates and extrapolations. We would recommend another approach that a linear extrapolation of the evolution. For the “packaging directive” scenario (3), CIAA would suggest to use the RDC/Pira study as a good basis to quantify the costs and benefits related to the Packaging Directive. In annex, you will find the comments CIAA had elaborated once the RDC/Pira report was published.

* To better evaluate the environmental impact of the PPWD, a sensitivity analysis would be extremely useful and would allow to identify and focus on the key impacts that need to be assessed.

* Regarding the environmental impacts to be reported, water as an input should be added in the table (See section 1.2.1, p.6). When looking at the energy input for the different packaging materials waste management, the authors of the report should also specify what type of energetic model is used for the electricity production.

ECONOMIC IMPACTS

* From an economic point of view, it would be interesting to think in detail about the technical burdens which may exist when recycling is to be promoted, as stated in point 1.3.5.4. Present technology has limits that must be considered and higher targets mean higher costs.

2 * Costs assumptions data: The consultants should clarify the methods to analyse the costs. It should also be specified whether these include taxes or not (VAT). Besides, in the interim report, the costs data available are often under-estimated:

§ Packaging recycling industry (p. 13 section 1.3.4.1): We need to be sure all costs borne by the collection schemes are reflected here, not just relating to the percentage of waste effectively recycled. § The last paragraph of section 1.3.5.2 p. 15 suggests that “the turnover of the compliance schemes may be an indication of the whole packaging recovery sector”. We have some reservations about this conclusion BUT more importantly it would then be essential to be sure of the cost of these schemes. The following sections (p. 16 - p. 36) are all based on cost assumptions that we believe to be well below the true costs of these schemes and therefore risk repeatedly understating this input in later, important comparisons such as those addressed on p. 36. § In section 1.3.5.2 p. 14, it is mentioned that some potential impacts of encouraging reuse would include “increase in turnover for packaging recyclers”. Presumably they mean reconditioners of reusable packs, who are not the same people as recyclers. It should also be stressed that encouraging reuse systems also decreases turnover of companies designing, manufacturing and recycling one-way packages (e.g. can manufacturers in Germany) and corresponding filling equipment. Besides, the reuse will lead to a significant increase of the transport. § In section 1.3.5.2 p. 14 it is suggested some potential impacts of Recovery & Recycling systems would include a “decrease of turnover for raw material producers through substitution by recycled material”, but this excludes the reality of “open loop” recycling, i.e. metal cans into engine blocks, plastic bottles into fibres etc.

* In this economic section, costs of the implementation of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive for the community should be made available. For instance, figures on the costs of green dot systems should be included in the report. It would also be interesting to provide the costs borne by the municipalities as in general, municipalities are involved in packaging waste management as the PPWD foresees that “these systems shall be open to the participation of the economic operators of the sectors concerned and to the participation of the competent public authorities”.

* When looking at the distributive effects, it should be clarified that it is the packaging packer/filler/importer who pays the green dot (recycling/recovery cost) and not the packaging producers (p.21 and p.24). In this section, the distinction between 2 types of “tax payers” should also be made: the consumer and the citizen (p.25). Finally, the term “benefits” should be replaced by “income” (p.24-25).

* In terms of methodology, rather than looking at the turnover made by the various actors of the packaging chain, it is rather the economic impacts/costs related to the collection, sorting and recycling as well as the revenue from the sale of secondary materials that should be calculated. To do so, the SOFRES study “Cost-efficiency of Packaging Recovery Systems” can be a good starting point but it should be noted that this study focused on 4 Member States only and not on the EU 15. Moreover, this study compares the costs of the different packaging recovery systems but does not compare the performances of those systems.

* In the section on increases or decreases in consumer prices (See 1.3.5.7, p.33), it should be mentioned that the increase in consumer price for recovery/recycling should

3 be partly balanced by a reduction in local taxes when municipalities are no more involved in packaging waste management (e.g. Germany, Austria, Sweden).

TASK 2: PACKAGING PREVENTION

INDICATORS FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE OF PACKAGING

CIAA has strong reservations regarding the use of such environmental indicators: - It is still very much unclear what the objectives/expected results of such indicators should be, who should use those indicators, how they should be implemented, which body should be responsible for their control, who should be in charge of the calculation, etc. Another difficulty is the modelling of the environmental indicators (how can we estimate all indirect effects?). - The approach associated with such indicators does not favour a continuous improvement of the environmental performance of packaging. These indicators mentioned in the report may even be dangerous if they lead to legal requirements like it is proposed in Germany, where certain packaging material might be considered "ecologically favourable" or "unfavourable", the latter being charged with a deposit and subject to a return system. This kind of indicators would produce violent and dangerous migrations of products from one packaging material to a different one. - CIAA disagrees with the authors’ statement that “a PEI…could have the potential to help improve the Directive’s positioning in terms of the EU’s aims regarding Sustainable Development as expressed in the 6EAP”: the PEI exclusively addresses the environment pillar of sustainable development, neglecting the 2 other social and the economic pillars.

More specifically on the development of a Packaging Environment Indicator (PEI): - The selection of particular parameters (e.g. CO2 emissions and final waste) for a PEI would be arbitrary, not in line with ISO standard on LCA and would not provide a reliable environmental impact assessment. Moreover, traditionally for non- renewable resources such as metals, glass and plastics, the selling price can probably be said to reflect the cost of energy used to make the pack. However, with the introduction of renewable packaging materials, such as starch-based product, this is not necessarily the case any more. It is interesting to note that the study already states that PEI would not be very useful since packaging are very similar in terms of environmental impact (See p. 41). - Flawed PEI would lead to wrong decision-making, which would be worse than current situation where decision-making regarding packaging prevention is not "data-less" but based on thorough assessment, e.g. using CEN standards methodology (See p. 42). As regards "Function, functional unit and reference flow", a clear definition on what is supposed to be relevant performance characteristics is necessary (See the discussion on primary and secondary functions in LCA literature). If the functional unit is well defined, the primary function of the package is included, but not necessarily secondary functions. - Some general questions related to the three different PEI assessment methods can be raised: which impact assessment method is used and why? Which are the available waste management options? - In PEI model 1 (p. 45): the environmental impact is not just "simplified" but not assessed at all. This is not acceptable as it does not take into account the entire life cycle of the product. Besides, it has no sense to envisage as a parameter the

4 energy requirement to produce the packaging as this is an environmental factor that is already fully internalised (i.e. packaging producers pay the energy). - In PEI Model 2 (p. 47): In the light of many new packaging materials based on renewable resources, the environmental impacts included in this model are not sufficient in order to give a fair treatment to all materials. Whereas energy consumption in the manufacturing process is a major contribution to the environmental impact of non-renewable materials, the major environmental impacts related to the use of renewable resources is frequently toxicity, human, terrestrial and aquatic. This model would thus give an unfair treatment to non-renewable materials. - In PEI model 3 (p. 49): This model provides, a more balanced treatment of materials, whether they be based on renewable or non-renewable resources, provided that the toxicity includes the three aspects mentioned in the comments for PEI 2. The model should take into account at least the major non-energy related environmental impacts of all material types likely to be used in packaging. à For the PEI models 2 and 3, it should be clarified how the systems have been defined, and in particular how do they take into account the transport distances that might vary and how do they take into account the different waste management systems that vary from a country/region to another ? - Regarding the influence of data robustness and methodological and allocation choices on the PEI results, it is not only important to evaluate the effect of the uncertainty of the data used on the final result. One should also take into account the effects related to the data which is NOT taken into account in the model. One general comment on uncertainty calculation is that the more ncompletei is the information on uncertainty the lower is the calculated uncertainty. This does by no means imply that the uncertainty related to the factors not taken into account seizes to exist, it just becomes more implicit and hidden. If these models shall have any credibility whatsoever, their uncertainty estimation should thus include the effect of the exclusion of environmental impacts on its efficiency to decipher between two alternatives. (See p. 50 section 2.1.4.2) - CIAA disagrees with the authors’ intention to extend the PEI concept to the product contained by the packaging. The purpose of a possible PEI according to Directive 2004/12/EC is to "render packaging waste prevention simpler and more effective". It is not to assess the environmental impact of packaged goods along their life cycle. However, technical and commercial requirements of the packaged good should be included in the PEI approach. Actually, packaging requirements are not linked to the retail price of a packaged good, but to various technical and commercial parameters as described in CEN standard on packaging prevention EN13428. Moreover, the link between the environmental impact of a product and his typical retail price is less than clear. Retail price is not related to hazardousness of a product.

PACKAGING PREVENTION PLANS

* This section is very much descriptive and does not provide an evaluation of the content and efficiency of the existing plans.

* The consultants conclude that “Packaging Prevention Plans are an important source of information for the authorities’ (p.66). We can therefore question ourselves whether this is the main role of a waste prevention plan ?

5 * It seems necessary to clarify what might be included in a waste prevention plan. CIAA believes that the essential requirements should not be included in those plans. For instance, the implementation of essential requirements in France is equivalent to the implementation of a PPP in Belgium.

* A PPP should not either replace voluntary agreements signed between industry and the authorities (e.g. Packaging Covenant in the Netherlands, agreement signed in France between the glass industry and the authorities to reduce the energy consumption, etc.)

ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS

* The minimization of the environmental impact of packaging can simply be achieved through proper implementation and enforcement of the Essential Requirements in all the Members States following the UK and French experiences. The CEN standards on packaging mandated by the European Commission are key as they provide guidelines to economic operators to enable them to comply with the essential requirements of the Directive 94/62. It should however be noted that these tools (CEN Standards) are currently being finalized and it is too early to come to any conclusion in this area.

* The European food and drink industry strongly supports the CEN standard on prevention EN 13428 and hopes it will be officially adopted by the Commission so that to come into force as soon as possible. Such standard could achieve what the Packaging Environment Indicator tries to achieve while at the same time offering the flexibility needed to encourage innovation and allowing packaging to be adapted to consumer needs. It is also a tool that is incorporated into environmental and quality management systems of companies to continuously improve the environmental performance of packaging.

* While assessing the process of development and adoption of those standards on packaging, it is not correct to only take into account the very unbalanced EEB study (See p. 91 section 2.3.6.3). This study is outdated since it refers to the standards developed by CEN in 2000, and not to the latest ones. Moreover, its statement related to mandate fulfilment is not correct, as two standards were approved by the European Commission.

* As regards stakeholder involvement in the standardization process, national standardization bodies are open to NGOs so that their views are taken into consideration in the same way as other stakeholders.

* The Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive has never been explicitly qualified as "New Approach" Directive. Moreover, there is no necessity for a conformity assessment procedure, since the mere act of placing packaging on the market in itself implies that the producer has complied with the relevant regulations. If this were not the case, the producer would be breaking the law. It is of no use to have a conformity assessment procedure when the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive requires explicitly that all packaging placed on the market will have to conform to the essential requirements. Moreover, CEN has been mandated by the Commission to elaborate standards which, if complied with, are intended to presume compliance with the essential requirements for packaging (Article 9 of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive).

6 TASK 3: PACKAGING REUSE

* At this stage, it is unclear what the consultants’ intentions are for this particular chapter. The same remark and concerns mentioned above (see general comments on methodology) can be recalled as the consultants seem to imply that they will compile the numerous available studies carried out on packaging reuse. Basing a new study on older ones to assess some possible measures encouraging packaging reuse might reproduce their inherent flaws with the risk to come to misleading conclusions.

* About reuse systems, the report should stress that the encouragement of reuse systems decreases turnover of companies designing, manufacturing and recycling one- way packaging and corresponding filling equipment (See p. 14). It should also clarify that the encouragement of reuse systems results in write-off of fixed-capital used to manufacture or fill one-way packages, investment in new packaging lines and equipment used for returning empty packages (e.g. crates) (See p. 20). When looking at consumer price, it should also be mentioned that encouragement of reuse systems reduces competition by favouring local products and likely results in increased consumer prices (See p. 33 section 1.3.5.7).

* Attached, we also enclose a study made by our British members, the Food and Drink Federation on “Packer Filler Response on Reusable Primary Packaging”. This summarizes the high capital outlay costs that would be required for conversion of filling lines from one trip to reusable and a key finding from the UK Dairy industry that refillables are only suitable for closed loop systems. Once the distribution chain is broken i.e. packer/filler to retailer to consumer, then the packaging does not get returned.

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Comments Robbert van Duin on Interim Report 03/07884/AL; version 23 04 2004 “Study on the implementation of Directive 94/62/EC on Packaging and Packaging Waste and options to strenghthen prevention and re-use of packaging”

p. 2/3; table 1,2 - Spain = Sweden - Data for the Netherlands differ from formal data of Commissie Verpakkingen; however this can be correct since there were many changes of definitions and corrections of data in this official source. Description of the source (“European Commission”) should be more extended in order to inform about definitions used, status and date of the source, etc. - Table 3 is needed giving same kind of information (countries of EU15 / 1997-2001) on “the total quantity of packaging placed on the market” [if possible not only in kton but also in units of packaging]. - Table 4 is needed giving same kind of information (countries of EU15 / 1997-2001) on “the total quantity of re-used packaging placed on the market” [in units of packaging] p. 25 - Social/economic group “municipalities” should be listed as well, because of their costs for cleaning streets/parcs/waterways/etc. from litter and their costs for emptying waste bins with packaging waste. - Other groups like road maintenance authorities and recreation parks could be mentioned for the same reasons. p. 26 - Is it possible to give additional information (at least an impression) of the situation in other EU15 countries and developments since 2000 ? p. 41; § 2.1.2. - PEI should not be called a prevention option; it is an approach to inform about the environmental quality of packaging with the objective to stimulate better choices. So for example using the PEI can lead to the use of less packaging material, re-use systems or packaging systems with better/more materials recycling. - Referring to the work being carried out in the Netherlands should be done inclusive information about (critical) reviews of the study, results and possibilities. p. 41; § 2.1.3. - This statement describes a subjective view on the use of LCA which I do not agree with and moreover looks too irrelevant here to discuss. - Is the competition re-use ↔ one-way also taken into account here ? I prefer this to be done in a special paragraph on LCA in the chapter on re-use. p. 42; § 2.1.3.2/3 - This is the key element of the PEI process. Attention should be given to: . (When) can a PEI fulfil the same objective comparing packaging systems as an LCA ? . Basic rules for situations where comparing packaging systems with a PEI is not feasible ? . What about an acceptable bandwidth in (comparing) PEI-results ? p. 45 ++ - The disadvantage of PEI model 1 and others is that (huge) simplification gives a high risk of wrong comparisons. - Analysis of these risks could compare use of PEI with use of LCA (with examples ?) . p. 47 ++ - Final waste could be defined as “not-recycled-waste”, so loss/degradation of raw materials is taken into account.

BUREAU B&G 1 4 juni 2004

p. 49 - The PEI models only differ quality in terms of the number of environmental impacts taken into account. In my opinion it is more important to take care of procedural safeguard measures. This should be in line with recent developments in the LCA as described in the LCA Handbook of CML, where B&G and Technical University Delft wrote a new part on procedural guidelines. - It is important that ISO standards define stronger procedural guidelines in case of LCA’s with comparisons disclosed to the public. - Elements of a PEI model which gives attention to procedural elements: . Transparency: PEI-calculations should be fully presented on onternet . Additional Info: should be made available on request of interested parties (all information that is needed to get a good LCA-impression of –other- environmental impacts of the product such as info on heavy metals and toxics) . Approval of full proof LCA according to ISO standards in case of reasonable doubt based on global LCA comparison –proven by an interested party- (if one or more environmental impacts changes the result of a comparison). p. 50; § 2.1.5. - First requirement of a good LCA is of course a sharp definition of the functional unit. So anyhow this “bicycle tires example” is nonsense. - The idea that you should both simplify (PEI instead of LCA) and create more complexity (expand analysis to packaging and product) is strange. This both will lead to expansions of the bandwidth of the results of the analysis. There is a big risk that this will only create a lot of fog. p. 51; § 2.1.6. - see comments on page 49 p. 58; § 2.2.2.6. - In fact Packaging Covenant I agreed to more than 60% recycling since the sum of the material specific targets goes higher. - Packaging Covenant I also agreed to 10% real prevention in 2000 compared to 1986 (without correction for GDP-growth). However this objective was changed in 1997 with a new agreement (Packaging Covenant II). - There also was an agreement for a change from one-way towards re-use if this was environmentally better. Ten product groups were analysed with LCA. In the end there remained discussion on the LCA results and the existing situation did not change. - Packaging Covenant II reformulated the prevention objective in such a way that a growth of the amount of packaging placed on the market was called prevention. The new prevention objective implied that during the period of Packaging Covenant II a growth of more than GDP-growth was defined as prevention. - It should be mentioned that in 2001 (when there was no new packaging covenant) draft regulation was published. It is announced that his draft regulation will come into force if not a 67% reduction of the litter of cans and small bottles is realised before 1 January 2005. This new regulation then can replace Packaging Covenant III Monitoring of this reduction target will be a big problem. - Packaging Covenant III is also signed by local authorities (VNG) and other representatives of industry. p. 65; § 2.2.3.4. - Paragraph 2.2.3. is called “Evaluation”. An attempt should be made to evaluate all EU15 countries. The evaluation of the Netherlands is part of § 2.2.3.4 “Practical consequences” and is not an evaluation of results of Dutch packaging policy but a description of SVM-Pact . - With respect to monitoring it should be said that there is no data control structured by either government or Packaging Committee. There is a history of relatively big corrections of data and NGO’s have expressed there doubts on monitoring results. - It should be noted that since the start of Packaging Covenant II there is hardly no progress in recycling percentages in the Netherlands and in several cases there is some fall-back. The same counts for prevention and re-use. (see B&G evaluation and table 2)

BUREAU B&G 2 4 juni 2004

p. 73; § 2.2.4.3 - It looks as if this evaluation regards only Packaging Covenant I, when there was real progress in Dutch packaging policy. [It even still calculates in guilders.] What about the present situation ? - Calculated proof of effects and costs is needed. - Organisation costs and other costs should be divided between measures taken for recycling / re-use / prevention / publicity and lobby by the stakeholders. p. 109 - 2001 recovery rate in Sweden was 66% according to table 1 on page 2 (not 67%) p. 117 - See comments on page 58 and B&G-evaluation p. 123 - It is confusing to define re-use as a prevention option - There is a lot of info on packaging re-use. I will inform you later.

BUREAU B&G 3 4 juni 2004 15.07.2004

PRO EUROPE COMMENTS

Interim Report of Ecolas PIRA for the study of the implementation of Directive 94/62/EC on Packaging and Packaging Waste and options to strength prevention and re-use of packaging

Pro Europe represents 24 national schemes responsible for the collection, recovery and recycling of packaging waste which are active in 20 Member States, Bulgaria, Turkey, Norway and Canada1. Pro Europe’s member organisations are responsible for meeting the recovery and recycling targets laid down in EU Directive 94/62/EC on Packaging and Packaging Waste. As practitioners who are closely involved in the collection and recycling of packaging waste, Pro Europe has widely collaborated with the European institutions in shaping the revised Packaging Directive by sharing experience and expertise.

GENERAL COMMENTS

Article 6 paragraph 8 of Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste, as amended by Directive 2004/12/EC, envisages that the Commission will present a report to the European Parliament and the Council on the progress on the implementation of the Directive as well as of the functioning of the internal market by 30 June 2005. This report will take into account individual circumstances in each Member State. Having reviewed the Interim Report of Ecolas/ PIRA for the Commission, PRO Europe would like to make the following general comments:

• The interim report only considers the situation of Greece, Ireland and Portugal as regards the deadline for achieving the recovery and recycling targets. PRO Europe believes it essential to take into account the state-of-the-art technology, demography as well as environmental and geographic factors in the Member States. Only after having taken all these circumstances into account it will be possible to understand the effectiveness of Directive 94/62/EC. Should this not be the case, the conclusions will not be very realistic. • The impact analysis in the interim report contains too little information to make an appraisal of it. It does not show what are the input and the output of the analysis nor what the system boundaries are. No sensitivity analysis is made. It is important that the analysis is done for every country separately even if the aim is to come to an overall result for the European Union. • The studies used in the Report are often based on data which is out of date. Concerning compliance schemes, PRO Europe is providing an updated overview including information on the turnover of the compliance schemes members of PRO Europe for the business years 1998 until 2003 (Table 7, page 17, enclosure 1) as well as updated licence fees for 6 packaging examples (2004 figures, Table 24, page 108, enclosure 2) • The SOFRES study is used as the most important data source. It has to be taken into account that the study only gives information on four countries (two of them without compliance scheme) so that these information cannot be extrapolated to other member states. • The draft of the interim report does not take into account already passed European legislation as e.g. the Landfill Directive which will have a major and drastic impact on the future development on waste and its treatment, on costs and capacities for the treatment of waste.

1 ARA – Altstoff Recycling Austria (Austria); DSD – Duales System Deutschland AG (Germany); Eco Emballages (France), Eco Embalajes Espana (Spain); FOST Plus (Belgium); HE.R.R.CO (Greece); REPA (Sweden); REPAK (Ireland); SPV – Sociedade Ponto Verde (Portugal); VALORLUX (Luxembourg); Materialretur (Norway); CEVKO (Turkey); EKO KOM (Czech Rep.); EnviPak (Slovak Rep.); Green Dot Cyprus (Cyprus); Latvijas Zalais Punkts (Latvia); ÖKOPANNON (Hungary); RekoPol (Poland); SLOPAK (Slovenia); Zaliasis Taskas (Lithuania), EcoPack (Bulgaria), GreenPak (Malta) and the co-operation partners VALPAK (UK) and CSR (Canada) - 2 -

• The Interim Report is basically descriptive, and a lot of information is missing or incomplete. Moreover, very few concrete proposals are presented. Consequently, it is very difficult to make an overall assessment on all the issues at this stage.

SPECIFIC COMMENTS ON THE TASKS EVALUATED BY ECOLAS/PIRA

Task 1: Evaluation of the implementation of the Packaging Direction 94/62/EC

1.2 Impacts of the Directive evaluated from environmental perspective The report states that one of the aims of the study is to assess the environmental impact of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive. PRO Europe has the following comments on the key assumptions related to the models used in this section:

• The collection and transport of used packaging are not considered, although they represent significant environmental factors. • Recycling of plastic: taking only PET bottles into account (plastic with high recyclability in comparison to other kinds of plastics) means that lower costs from an environmental and economical point of view alone are considered. Therefore, the real impact of plastic packaging collection, sorting and management is not reflected. • The study considers only steel cans, ignoring industrial steel packaging, thus rendering the different scenarios studied unrealistic; e.g. in the UK the majority of steel packaging recycled consists of commercial and industrial drums and strapping. • Paper recycling: the report indicates that all paper recycling has been considered as corrugated board. This means that only the most easily recyclable paper fraction has been considered, not taking into account other paper fractions, which have to be collected, transported, sorted and appropriately managed in different ways (recycling, incineration with energy recovery, etc). • It seems that the positive effects of packaging recycling to the environment are not adequately taken into account. Only in Germany and only by recycling of household packaging all in all primary energy totalling 64.1 billion megajouls was saved in 2003; in addition recycling prevented the emission of 1.32 million tonnes of climate endangering greenhouse gases (www.gruener-punkt.de/environmental_performance_balance).

For the above-mentioned reasons, the assumptions of the report do not reflect the real environmental costs of packaging waste collection and management.

1.3 Impacts of the Directive evaluated from economic perspective Regarding calculation method 1 (pages 22 and 24), the interim report recognises that the accuracy of the cost values can be considered to be within a range of 10% to 15% for household packaging and that for non-household packaging the accuracy may be much lower. According to the report the resulting overall uncertainty (household + commercial + industrial) would be above 30%. PRO Europe believes this high degree of uncertainty makes it very difficult to extract any conclusion.

1.3.5.2 Economic growth Compliance schemes (with the involvement of packer/fillers, retailers and packaging producers) have contributed to the practical implementation of the Packaging Directive in ten (and not eight, as quoted on page 15) of the EU-15 Member States. These schemes are financed through the payment of a waste management fee against which those putting packaging on the market can attach the Green Dot mark (financing symbol) on the packaging.

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The interim report’s Table 6: Areas of activities of main compliance schemes (page 16) should be amended to reflect the following:

• France: Adelphe is also using the Green Dot • Luxembourg: Valorlux is also dealing with industrial packaging • Spain: Ecovidrio is also using the Green Dot • Sweden: REPA is also using the Green Dot • Greece: HERRCO is responsible for all kinds of packaging waste and is also uses the Green Dot. • UK: VALPAK is responsible for material recovery from both streams, municipal and industrial packaging waste, both directly through their trading company Valient Materials and indirectly through the purchase of PRNs.

From waste to resources management Many local authorities which are organising the collection and sorting together with the respective self-help-organisations of industry have taken the opportunity by starting separate collection of packaging to re-think their dealing with waste in total. So, the general waste management has developed from a waste disposal just taking into account public health issues to a management of resources by optimising the use of natural resources as well (see enclosure 3).

Technological developments The efforts made by industry in innovation and technological development in different countries are not reflected in the report.

Considerable technological developments have been achieved in the fields of sorting and recycling. Ten years ago, the sorting of packaging was largely done by hand. Today, more and more sorting plants are semi or fully automatic. This has increased sorting productivity from 150 kg/ hour up to 800 kg/ hour per employee when sorting fully automatic (see enclosure 4).

Likewise, significant technological advances have been made in the field of recycling of used plastic packaging as well as used beverage cartons, for example:

- PET: bottle to bottle recycling - Feedstock recycling for mixed plastic waste - Development of markets for secondary raw materials (see booklet, enclosure 5) - Finnish recycling plant for used beverage cartons (where besides the paper fraction the aluminium part is recycled and the plastic part is recovered as well, enclosure 6 )

As a result of these advances, the costs for the recycling of plastic packaging are going down and will further decrease in the future.

Also in many European countries, Near Infra Red (NIR) technology (see enclosure 4) has become more and more popular over the last five years, and is an example of the innovative technologies used in the countries. Where applicable, three out of four cartons for beverage packaging are now sorted by NIR technology. However, it should be noted that the reason for promoting technology and innovation in Germany could be attributed more to economic reasons than to ecological ones. By NIR a computer recognises whether a packaging belongs to a fixed parameter and is then sorted out automatically by air.

Social Perspective A significant impact can also be seen from a social perspective:

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• A considerable number of jobs have been created by setting up and running the take- back and recovery systems (see enclosure 7 including estimate figures for five Member States in 2002). • Environmental awareness on behalf of consumers as well as of business has significantly increased. For the first time people have the possibility to notice how much waste they are producing and that they have an active chance to influence the sound management of waste through selective collection.

Enclosure 8 shows a number of surveys in some European countries outlining the environmental awareness programmes rolled out by compliance schemes including education programmes for kinder gardens and schools, seminars for teachers as well as the development of didactic environmental communication materials.

Likewise, companies’ attitude towards Extended Producer Responsibility is in general shifting with more and more companies committed to taking initiatives to reduce the impact of their products on the environment (see enclosure 9).

Task 2: Prevention

2.1 Packaging Prevention: indicators for the environmental performance of packaging PRO Europe and its members are very sceptical about the introduction of a single parameter to assess the environmental performance of packaging, such as the Packaging Environment Indicator (PEI). In our view, packaging has to be seen as part of an integrated system. PRO Europe and its members are in general willing to support any tool which provides added value on prevention and helps identify potential for improvement, as long as it does not imply an excessive administrative burden.

Furthermore, from an environmental perspective, the packaging and the packed product should be jointly considered as a unit. Waste prevention should not only be considered in terms of qualitative and quantitative reduction in the packaging materials used but rather in the context of the entire process chain - from production to distribution and sales, to consumer use and subsequent disposal. Less packaging itself is not necessarily more environmentally responsible. For example, insufficient packaging can often lead to product losses bringing an increased environmental and/or economic impact. To our understanding, prevention should be considered as overall environmental reduction including in particular the avoidance of material and energy losses.

A more efficient way of encouraging prevention should include policies aimed at recycling of materials and optimising energy use, while ensuring the functionality of the packaging, notably product protection.

PRO Europe would therefore recommend a holistic approach towards the whole life of the product and its packaging, instead of concentrating on only one part of the chain, as seems to be the case in relation to the PEI. This tool, at its current design state, has important limitations. It looks at packaging in isolation from the product it contains and, as the report recognises, “it could produce environmentally perverse results, such as favouring over- minimised packaging that causes product wastage and greater environmental impact overall” (page 43).

In recent years, it has been possible to de-couple economic growth from the increase in the amount of used packaging (see enclosure 10). Compliance organisations have contributed to this objective by playing a key role in the recovery of used materials which are reintroduced in the manufacturing process, saving not only raw materials, but also reducing energy consumption and emissions.

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Moreover, it has to be taken into account that landfilling could be reduced enormously, see enclosure 11, the Austrian example.

At least it is not clear for us for what purpose the PEI will be used for., e.g. as an information tool for the consumer, as technical guideline for companies or legislative measure. The different purpose would call for different requirements with regard to exactness which the PEI had to fulfil.

2.2 Packaging Prevention Plans From the report’s descriptions of different prevention plans in some Member States, it can be concluded that:

• Packaging waste prevention figures are not better in those countries where it is mandatory to have Prevention Plans. • Both individual and sectoral plans have advantages and disadvantages. For example, sectoral plans have a "swaying effect" on small and medium enterprises. In the long-term sectoral plans are a better tool due to the grouping of data, while individual plans provide better information at an individual level but imply a higher administrative burden.

Nevertheless, in order to achieve good results on prevention, it is necessary to combine different instruments and not to put all the responsibility on packer/fillers. PRO Europe and its members are supportive of further inclusive action such as information campaigns aimed at consumers, different actions towards producers concerning eco-design, promotion of research and development activities concerning new packaging materials technologies.

Moreover, as long as many factors and different agents are involved, PRO Europe would recommend an approach towards prevention based on voluntary and sectoral agreements, which could lead to more effective results.

2.3 Essential requirements Essential requirements, as laid out in Article 9 of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive, are only implemented in a few member states up to now. The members of PRO EUROPE support the application of the European standards by promoting communication activities towards companies in order to facilitate the application of the essential requirements from a voluntary approach. Regarding existing examples, see enclosure 12.

2.5 Producer responsibility PRO Europe and its members would advocate a formula which implements shared producer responsibility regarding prevention, in order to involve all agents in the packaging chain apart from /in addition to fillers, i.e., packaging manufacturers, distribution, etc.

2.5.5 Prevention targets PRO Europe agrees with the following conclusions made in the report:

• The lack of reliable statistics on packaging waste makes it increasingly difficult to tackle prevention through a quantitative target. As the Commission recognises in its Communication, Towards a Thematic Strategy on waste prevention and recycling (COM (2003) 301), it will be necessary to wait until 2008 to have a first assessment of waste generation trends, as a consequence of the implementation of Regulation (EC) 2150/2002 on waste statistics. • It is questionable whether weight or volume are always the most appropriate indicators of the environmental burden of waste. From our experience, the potential for additional reductions in the weight of packaging is limited, taking into account the requirements that packaging must fulfil to guarantee the preservation and quality of the products that it contains, and in view of the current state of recycling technologies.

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• Prevention targets would have to take into account social and demographic evolutions, e.g. the growing part of old people within our society as well as the growing number of single households which both need and ask for specific packaging as easy to open and smaller portions. It is not clear to us how rigid targets can take into account these changing’s.

Task 3: Packaging Re-use PRO Europe and its members would call on the Commission to consider carrying out a more objective evaluation of the impact of re-usable and one-way packaging. The conclusion based on previous evaluations that re-usable is always better than one-way packaging is in our view no longer valid, as it is based on waste disposal considerations only, ignoring the environmental impacts associated with energy and emissions arising from the transport of used packaging for reuse.

Such evaluation should be done on the basis of the different applications of packaging rather than focusing on different packaging systems (e.g. reuse, recycling, etc.) In the field of beverage packaging for example, the development of new packaging as well as new recycling technologies is very fast (PET bottles, recycling possibilities for beverages cartons, bottle-to-bottle-recycling of PET, etc).

We feel that any restriction to one kind of packaging/packaging system would only serve to hinder technical innovation as well as to increase the negative impact on the environment.

Task 4: stakeholder consultation PRO Europe is grateful to the Commission for the opportunity to communicate its thoughts and comments on the Ecolas/ PIRA report. However, we would state that the timeframe which has been given to analyse the document and to provide the Commission with national data is very short. We hope that stakeholders will be consulted again as the study advances, and we look forward to providing the Commission with further comments on the study.

**** ** ****

ACE, The Alliance for Beverage Cartons & the Environment CEPI, Confederation of European Paper Industries CITPA, International Confederation of Paper & Board Converters ECMA, European Carton Makers Association ECO, European Containerboard Organisation EMBALPACK, European Association of Makers of Packaging Papers CEPI EUROKRAFT, European Kraft Paper Producers for the Flexible Packaging Industry EUROSAC, Fédération Européenne des Fabricants de Sacs en Papier à Grande Contenance FEFCO / PROBOX, European Federation of Corrugated Board Manufacturers GROUPEMENT ONDULE, European Association of Makers of Corrugated Base Papers PROCARTON / CEPI CARTONBOARD, Assoc. European Cartonboard and Carton Manufacturers

Comments from the Paper Packaging Co-ordination Group (PPCG) on the Ecolas/PIRA “Study on the implementation of Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste and options to strengthen prevention and re-use of packaging - interim report”

General comments ƒ Definitions in general are not clear: what is meant by prevention for example. ƒ Environmental impact has been pushed somewhere in the back – the study seems to have taken the view that certain actions (re-use, less packaging, etc.) are always good for the environment. ƒ According to the terms of reference, when prevention is considered, packaging should be seen in conjunction with the product. This is not the case in the study.

Evaluation of the implementation of the Directive (chapter 1) ƒ Are issues like how the recovery targets have been set at the national levels, comparison of the packaging data reported by the Member States, packaging fees in different Member States, definitions of recycling, packaging, etc. going to be a part of the analysis? ƒ More specifically about the fees: ƒ In many national packaging waste management systems, fees are based on weight and heavier material (such as recycled material) is disadvantaged compared to lightweight material. The environmental credentials of recyclable and recycled materials, such as paper and board are not taken into account, and the potential for material substitution based on weight alone, is clear. ƒ The Belgian Green Dot system has addressed this issue. FOST+ has put in place a solidarity mechanism in which the recycling costs included in the fee calculation for a material above 50 % recycling rate, are covered by the other materials. Thus the pragmatic system avoids disadvantages for well recycled materials, ensures FOST+ attains the high overall recycling tagets and offers less recycled materials an effective way to take on their responsibilities. ƒ Scenario 1: Zero Recovery is obsolete. In principle, efforts should be put on scenarios 2 Baseline policy and 3 Packaging Directive. Here too defining a baseline would create problems as in many Member States there would have been packaging legislation even without the PPWD. ƒ How to isolate the effect of the packaging and packaging waste directive (PPWD)? Is scenario 2 strictly without PPWD or without any legislation having an effect on packaging? For example, the Landfill Directive, that limits the possibility to landfill biodegradable municipal waste, has in many Member States been implemented in such a waste that no biodegradable waste can be landfilled, i.e. paper and board packaging is facing a recovery target of 100% in those Member States. ƒ Proper sensitivity analysis should be carried out and error margins indicated. 1

Impacts on the environment (1.2) ƒ Environmental impacts of prevention and reuse actions the Member States have carried out would have to be assessed as well. ƒ System boundaries would have to be clearly established: for example, how to take into account renewability of wood as a raw material to paper and board packaging?

Economic impact (1.3) ƒ Definitions given in chapter 1.3.2.1: What do ‘saved disposal cost’ cover? Do they cover for example saved collection costs (recycling requires separate collection while if everything is disposed of or incinerated, everything can be collected in one bag, but collection must be carried out anyway)? ƒ Prevention is a legal obligation set in the PPWD and related economic impact should be assessed. ƒ Economic impact of reuse should also be assessed including the possible effect between those producing reusable packaging and those that are not. ƒ Identification of social and economic groups: Does ‘Raw material producers’ include only those producers that use virgin raw materials? Those industries carrying out collection and sorting are not recyclers and hence not material producers. Therefore, also the group ‘Packaging Recycling Industry’ should be clarified.

Packaging prevention (Chapter 2)

Packaging Environment Indicator PEI (2.1) ƒ We understand that the objective of the study is not to develop a PEI, but to assess the feasibility of having one. ƒ There is no information about the possible use of a PEI, which makes it almost impossible to comment its feasibility. Workability of a PEI, or rather failure to see how such a tool could work in an efficient way, is the main concern of the paper and board packaging industry. ƒ The PPCG endorses the comment that "the creation of a PEI is challenging for fundamental reasons". However to state that a flawed PEI is better than "data-less decision-making" is completely wrong. Best industry practice is to base packaging decisions on minimum cost, which means reducing materials and energy and lower environmental impacts. This continuous improvement could be jeopardised by a simplistic PEI. ƒ A PEI should not compromise the functionality of packaging – it has to be seen in a broader context and with a product. ƒ System boundaries and functional unit have not been defined. ƒ For example, PEI one is based on the energy needed to produce a packaging. Would a packaging that is twice a size of the other have two times bigger an indicator? ƒ Would there be an indicator for each packaging and each product? ƒ PEI 2 takes final waste and global warming potential as criterion. Waste is already covered by the PPWD and if one seriously wants to combat the climate change, there would be plenty of other options available that would bring the wanted outcome in a more efficient way. ƒ An alternative could be based on an efficient implementation and use of the CEN packaging standards that would also provide the element of continuous improvement that a PEI will not bring along. With regard to prevention the essential requirements are very clear: “Packaging shall be so manufactured that the packaging volume and weight be limited to the minimum adequate amount to maintain the necessary level of safety, hygiene and acceptance for the packed product and for the consumer”.

Prevention plans (2.2) ƒ It is alarming to recognise that the Member States are considering reuse equal to prevention. As referred above, clarification of the definitions is needed.

2 ƒ Here again, defining a baseline against which the prevention plans should be assessed is needed: what is the added value the prevention plans bring compared to packaging standards and environmental management systems for example?

Essential requirements (2.3) ƒ Packaging can only be put on the market in the EU if it is conformity with the essential requirements. So in practice anyone can challenge any packaging in this regard. ƒ So far the Member States have not considered any conformity assessment procedures necessary. If considered necessary, the paper and board packaging industry thinks that a simple conformity assessment based on the EN 13427, once it is recognised as a harmonised European standard, could be considered. ƒ We also want to point out that many points concerning the process of development of the standards are subjective and according to our view clearly erroneous.

Heavy metals (2.4) ƒ We fail to see the justification of 10 ppm referred to in the terms of reference for the study: what kind of an analysis it is based on?

Producer responsibility (2.5.E) ƒ The paper and board packaging industry is of the opinion that the packaging standards set a proper model for the packaging producers that they have taken the responsibility to prevent packaging: ‘packaging shall be so manufactured that the packaging volume and weight be limited to the minimum’.

Prevention targets and landfill bans (2.5.F) ƒ As said the Landfill Directive already set a target for diversion of biodegradable waste including paper and board from landfills, and in many Member States it has been implemented in such a way that it effectively sets a landfill ban for paper and board packaging too.

Re-use (Chapter 3) ƒ There will be a specific expert meeting for the issue of re-use. Therefore, we at this point in time only want the make the point that re-use should not be encouraged regardless the environmental impact; a balanced approach to promote re-use and recycling systems would be needed. In many applications recyclable packaging is superior to reusable packaging from the environmental point of view, notably when packed goods are transported over long distances. ƒ Single-minded push in favour of reuse systems would, in addition to negative and positive environmental effects, have impact on competition between re-usable packaging and those that are not re-usable like paper and board packaging.

3

THE INTERIM REPORT OF THE ECOLAS/PIRA STUDY ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PACKAGING DIRECTIVE AND OPTIONS TO STRENGTHEN PREVENTION AND REUSE:

COMMENTS FROM THE CEN PACKAGING CONSULTANT

Introduction

These brief comments are submitted in my capacity as CEN Packaging Consultant.

They are therefore confined to the sections of the report covering the Essential Requirements and heavy metals.

Methodological comments

The “New Approach” (pages 77 and 92)

The authors discuss Directive 94/62 as if it were a “New Approach” directive, although on page 92 they explain that this is not entirely true. For instance, the CE mark is not applied to packaging which complies with the Essential Requirements. Thus, some of the discussion in the interim report is irrelevant.

The interim report contains a lot of general information about the use of standards in EU policymaking, and much of this should be deleted in favour of a more specific discussion of the packaging standards, which are rather exceptional in many ways.

Comments on the information in the interim report

Public interest stakeholder involvement (pages 86 and 91)

There is a reference on page 86 to the “unsatisfactory participation of environmental stakeholders”, but this is not explained. Page 91 comments that “stakeholder interests are insufficiently accounted for in the standardisation process.”

ANEC and EEB were on the mailing list of TC261 and TC261/SC4 throughout the standards- making process. NGOs sometimes attended Working Group meetings when the first mandate was being worked on:

• from Finland on the terminology, symbols and criteria for life cycle analysis; • from Germany (3 meetings) on material recovery; • from Germany (4 meetings) on energy recovery; • from Finland, Italy and ANEC on prevention; • from Germany on reuse; • from Finland and Germany on heavy metals and other dangerous substances.

In addition, NGOs were involved in the national mirror groups working on the standards in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Sweden, the UK and perhaps other countries.

Although their views were discussed at length at the Working Groups, the sporadic attendance of the NGOs made their contributions less effective than they might have been. The essence of standards work is debate to explore all possible aspects and test proposed solutions to arrive at shared understanding and compromise. This requires consistent attendance and a willingness to debate, and this was lacking. Since I was appointed CEN Packaging Consultant at the end of 1997, the NGOs have very rarely appeared at meetings.

The second mandate specifically required elaboration of the (revised) standards to be carried out “in close association with all interested parties, especially public authorities, industrial organisations, representatives of environmental and consumer groups and scientific organisations.” However, although the environmental NGOs were invited to attend the meetings they chose not to attend any of them during this second stage. It is a little hard to assert that the mandate was not fulfilled because the environmentalists did not participate, when they refused to respect the CEN procedures and take part in the Working Group meetings but only submitted critical written comments after the work had been done.

I very much regret this, as I believe that the NGOs have an important role to play, not in designing the standards but in cross-examining the industry experts to test the assumptions underlying their proposed solutions. Therefore, as I have suggested previously, it is my view that NGOs should be granted an attendance allowance and an allowance to cover preparation of papers – but they should not be given a block grant which is paid whether they contribute to the meetings or not.

I am not suggesting that the full history of the environmental NGOs’ relationship with CEN TC261 needs to be written up in the report, but it needs to be understood before the authors of the study can draw balanced conclusions.

EEB “legal analysis” (page 91)

Although it was presented as a legal analysis, the EEB publication referred to was in fact a political polemic. The words “from a legal point of view” should be deleted.

EEB and ANEC have made it very clear that they are opposed in principle to the “New Approach” (or variants on it) in the field of environmental protection. Therefore, they are out of sympathy with the entire mandated standards project. This viewpoint should be taken into consideration in the report, but whether these NGOs are right or wrong, it is imprudent for the study to use an EEB publication as its prime source of information without examining material from other sources.

Compliance with the Commission’s mandate (page 91)

The statement that “for all of the six mandated standards, the mandate requirements were not fulfilled” is presented as a statement of fact, referenced to EEB. In fact it is EEB’s opinion.

The legal position is that one of the five original (2000) mandated standards was deemed to be in full compliance with the mandate, and one other was deemed to be in partial compliance. No decision has as yet been made on how many of the six current mandated standards (i.e. the five revised standards plus the one unamended standard) are in compliance with the mandate requirements.

Product standards versus management standards (page 92)

The interim report states that “CEN chose a different approach than the one stipulated in the Directive”. It may be true that the approach adopted was not the one that the legislators expected CEN to adopt, but the Directive does not specify any particular approach.

The management systems approach is at the heart of the quantitative prevention requirements of EN 13428, the standard on prevention by source reduction, and the reference to this was published in the Official Journal through Commission Decision 2001/524/EC. Thus the legal position is that the management systems approach adopted by CEN is not in conflict with the Directive.

References to standards under development (page 95)

There are no standards prEN 13695-1 and prEN 13695-2.

CR 13695-1 and CR 13695-2 are CEN technical reports published in 2000 and 2002 respectively (a new edition of CR 13695-2 will be published in 2004).

Impact of the proposed legislation for the packaging industry (page 98)

The short section discussing the impact of the REACH system on packaging should be expanded to take account of the discussion on ”other dangerous substances” in CR 13695-2.

DAVID PERCHARD 28 May 2004

Comments to DGENV on the Interim Report: Study on the Implementation of the Packaging Directive and Options to Strengthen Prevention and Reuse

1 General 1.1 It is unrealistic to provide credible analysis with outdated models. The period under investigation has undergone some dramatic changes since most of the data was generated. 1.2 Resource efficiency of packaging relates only to the product it serves due to requisite functionality; and therefore disassociation from this is erroneous. 1.3 A P.E.I. does not take into account factors such global sourcing, different product offerings, consumer tastes and demographic changes. 1.4 Since current Prevention Plans are so akin to the Essential Requirements, which are already incorporated into the Packaging Directive with accompanying CEN standards, this should form the basis for a common harmonised prevention system. 1.5 The current Prevention Plan initiatives do not demonstrate success as in Figure 3. 1.6 The current Prevention Plans are based on either national parameters, sector or individual company parameters not a single material or packed product parameter. 1.7 Social aspects. (p. 35). Important to include the disamenity elements for additional recovery and recycling facilities and associated transport costs and pollution. UK planning system could jeopardise targets due to NIMBYism for MRFs, incinerators and landfills. 1.8 A recent report by CERES for the RRF (Resource Recovery Forum) indicates that transport costs could nearly double in the UK by 2006 due to increased waste management and with it associated pollution. The summary report is referenced under “Data” section below and attached.

2 Methodology 2.1 Use of “scenarios”: a Sect. 1.2 (p.5) – why zero recycling in “scenario 1” as totally theoretical since glass, paper and metals have used recovered material in their primary processes for many years. Only valid to use baseline scenario – confirmed in comments in 1.3.2. (p.10) – “Incremental impacts”. b Scenario referencing confusing as in reference to Sofres study on p.22 “scenario 1” refers to actual recycling and “scenario 2” to zero recycling with baseline as “scenario3”??? 2.2 Definitions: a Gross costs to “a recycled product”? 2.2.a.1. Does this mean when incorporated into new glass container or use as aggregate or simply cullet 2.2.a.2. As a new corrugated box or into a paper mill 2.2.a.3. As a recycled polymer pellet or flake or agglomerate for feedstock process? Impacts very different dependant upon parameters for each material – and within materials, e.g. PET flake vs. PE pellet, mixed coloured glass cullet vs. automatic sorted colours. b Financing need: Ian Dent 1 15/07/04 The Packaging Federation Vigilant House, 120 Wilton Road, London SW1V 1JZ 2.2.b.1. Artificial as dependant upon financial mechanisms employed, i.e. French contacts with LAs and specific re-processors may reflect the need well, but the UK PRN system is a laissez-faire mechanism which only reflects the supply-demand balance for the PRNs, which in turn represents a varying proportion of the actual packaging recycling. 2.2.b.2. It also ignores the growing and important element of exports to avoid the national financing need. 2.3 Packaging supply chain a (p.12) – Sellers/ retailers need including with packers/fillers/importers or separate category as in packaging chain. b 1.3.5.1. (p.14) – final bullet point – double-counting – how can differentiation be made? UK shared P.R. estimates by Government indicate that only 30% costs passed at upstream level but 70% downstream. c 2.1.5.1. (p.50) The proposal to include a “typical retail price in Euros” as a financial weighting factor is beyond belief as the pricing of some products can change weekly. Since a typical large retailer can have as many as 10,000 own brand packed goods with 10% new lines being added per annum and 10 – 20% being reformulated demanding new packaging, the sheer scale of managing that level of PEIs is totally impractical as up to 25% of those packed goods may be sourced outside of the UK. 2.4 Reuse systems potential impacts. a 1.3.5.2. (p.14) Gains to “packaging industry” misleading as certain manufacturers will have short-term gain whilst stock inventories built up, but thereafter repeat business for lost, damaged or used packaging plus some new sales but limited long-tern. This will usually be to the detriment of another material. The gains will be by the user, who saves on single trip packaging. b Similarly, recyclers will probably lose not gain volume due to reuse levels. c Decrease to raw material producers dependant upon material type, i.e. advent of plastic RTPs for retailers showed short-term increase for polymer suppliers at expense of paper/ corrugated suppliers, but overall increase may be neutral due to difference in weight. 2.5 Recycling systems potential impacts. a 1st bullet point – All packing is recoverable or recyclable. b Glass and metal raw material producers gain due to energy savings from using recycled material. c “the “classic” waste management sector gains by switching more operations into recovery and recycling at usually higher prices. 2.6 Analysis of packaging market – (ref. pp. 17/18 and Annex 1) a Needs more careful analysis as codes cited confuse packaging and non-packaging applications and packing activities as opposed to packaging. b This should be a separate exercise and study proposal outside of the scope of this study. c Similar concerns on waste management – and especially relevance of exercise in this case. What is more pertinent in packaging waste are the impacts of trade balances within and without the EU. 2.7 Reuse: 1.3.5.3. (p. 20) a Capex and operational costs - potential impacts – should include inventory levels and washing/ cleaning equipment processes. 2.8 Packaging material recycling processes. 1.2.1. (p.6) – key assumptions: a “glass recycling not colour specific” – ignores separation stage and capacity issues.

Ian Dent 2 15/07/04 The Packaging Federation Vigilant House, 120 Wilton Road, London SW1V 1JZ b Plastics recycling as PET only ignores Germany’s feedstock recycling in all data and what about the extensive PE film recycling? c Steel recycling ignores the industrial drum activity, which impacts on the 50:50 split used. d (p. 32) Qualitative description. Germany’s DSD Systec operations is testimony to that country’s technological developments, as are the end-market developments, e.g. UK’s WRAP and the development of degradable polymers. e (p.33) Differentiation of targets only creates a single common material target, which is not cohesion as this depends on the waste management infrastructure, the level of imports and exports and the packed products on the market. f This issue should not be discarded so lightly as the RDC/PIRA Report claimed that the competitive impact and market distortions could be significant. Relying on old and outdated reports for a new system is irrelevant. g 1.3.5.8. (p.34) The increasing levels of imported packed goods may place a disproportionate burden on that country’s waste management system, and deposit systems have distorting effect. Equally the ability to export the waste keeps costs lower. 2.9 P.E.I. a Confusion between packaging systems and single primary packaging. b Prerequisites should include practicality in measuring national and international sourcing of packaging and packed goods. c What is important is the ability to be able to monitor, by whom, when, at what cost, harmony within EU and harmony with imports from non-EU countries – all based on primary, secondary and tertiary packaging systems. d The sound arguments for why a PEI is difficult and meaningless is completely dissipated by the final sentence indicating that a flawed PEI is better than “data-less decision-making”. This is completely wrong as most major producers do base their packaging decisions on minimum cost, which means the producer must find ways to reduce materials and energy to meet those demands. The largest packaging users also produce predictive models to assess he impacts of changing packaging with the objective of reducing costs and environmental impacts. A flawed PEI could jeopardise efforts made to date and future innovations. e I thought that initial objective of Dorette Corbey was also to provide consumers with an informed choice. Thus, is the intention that each packed product should carry yet another symbol? This should be addressed as consumers find labelling of packed goods confusing already. f Is the model intended for commercial and industrial packaging systems also? g 2.1.4.1 The reference to the imperfect data sets should not be under-estimated, as most LCI data is now at least 10 years old in origin. Using EU-wide averages in energy generation, especially with the greater focus on energy management and climate change in recent years may lead to massive distortions if not kept up to date. h The system boundaries are set by the developer of the tool, but not specified – what are they? i There is no option to update either the LCI data or the system boundaries or any new materials. j With regard to transport, the global sourcing of packaging and packed goods by the major retailers needs to be accommodated as the transport packaging in this case is significant. How real and practical is such data to be obtained and monitored? k What is the basis for the financial weighting for non-fmcg? 2.10 PEI Model 1

Ian Dent 3 15/07/04 The Packaging Federation Vigilant House, 120 Wilton Road, London SW1V 1JZ a Transport is ignored, but yet plastic carrier bags or black refuse sacks sourced from the Far East may in the UK may incorporate plastics waste which originated in the UK, and has incurred much energy in transport. b The global sourcing and imported packed goods operations must be taken into account for this model to be feasible. c Does the energy table take into account either embedded energy content, or credit for using recovered material in its process? d This model has the capacity to create significant market distortions by only discriminating against energy intensive producers such as glass and metals unless they were to receive credit for their high usage of recycled material. e From a practical point of view, unless the requirement is upon such information to be made mandatory throughout the packaging supply chain there is considerable scope for error, fraud and non-compliance. 2.11 PEI Model 2 a Whilst this allows for the inclusion of transport as noted above, how will a “user” know of the waste management system when the packaging waste may end up in a different country? b If the plastics recycling is all reduced the PET bottle recycling figure, why separate the plastics in Table 12? What if the packaging goes into Germany’s feedstock recycling process? 2.12 PEI Model 3 a Why only emissions to air? Are emissions to land and water not as important – and easier to measure?

2.13 The analogy with tyres and bicycles is very apt as taking Coca-Cola’s evolution of packaging for example, their ceramic jug used for local sales in the 1890s was not suitable for their national sales in the 1920s, when they moved to the single serve glass bottle. With the evolution of supermarkets and bulk buying plus development of PET, their move to PET for 2litres bottles in 1978 was an obvious choice. This was all done for economic, and social reasons but with it the environmental benefits in lighter weight, less units of packaging are clear. However, this should not dictate that if a PEI was conducted then all sizes of Coca-Cola should be served in PET or all bottles should be 2 litre size. The interpretation of the PEI may lead down that path however.

3 Data a Use of Sofres questionable as since ’98 major changes taken place (p. 24 – ‘uncertainty over 30%’) b Sofres methodology OK but ref. year ’98 too little data esp. UK, and limited to 4 countries. c Argus study was more of an overview than analysis. d Fig. 8 (p.23) – Is extrapolation for EU-12 that of Sofres or Ecolas/PIRA? How relevant is data given ’98 basis, esp. UK with increase from 28 to 42% recycling? e Cost estimates (p. 24) – similarly changes in packaging and overall environmental management changes significantly due to IPPC etc. f Distributive effects (p.24) – ref. “packaging manufacturers” misleading – packer/fillers more accurate although shared producer in UK.. Some raw material producers gain from buying secondary raw materials vs. virgin. g Table 8: (p. 26) - Sofres data UK start of PRN system, and compares total packaging vs. HH.

Ian Dent 4 15/07/04 The Packaging Federation Vigilant House, 120 Wilton Road, London SW1V 1JZ h Scenario 2 - Calculation methods and assumptions (p. 27). How valid to use Sofres and Eunomia 2000 when different years? i Admin. burdens (p. 31) – there is an important information duty on businesses who have to calculate their packaging use annually and in the UK investments in IT systems for such purpose. Nave to suggest role for authorities only. j (p.32) – Changes in investment. There are specific cases where there is loss of investment as in the UK in plastics due to exporting of film waste. k Fig. 3: Note NL and F with prevention targets show increase waste and most with reuse targets also show increase. Shows that no correlation between GDP and packaging. l Table 3 does not give a ref. year, which is relevant as incineration capacity changes, i.e. UK now near 12% vs.7% quoted. m 1.2.2. (pp.7/8) – fig. 4 – glass waste management EU-15 average? Recycling into containers and aggregate? How is glass measured for incineration percentage? Fig. 5 comment – why little changes year on year? n Social aspects. (p. 35). Important to include the disamenity elements for additional recovery and recycling facilities and associated transport costs and pollution. UK planning system could jeopardise targets due to NIMBYism for MRFs, incinerators and landfills. o A recent report by CERES for the RRF indicates that transport costs could nearly double in the UK by 2006 due to increased waste management and with it associated pollution. This summary report is attached.

Ian Dent 5 15/07/04 The Packaging Federation Vigilant House, 120 Wilton Road, London SW1V 1JZ Comments on the study on the implementation of Directive on Packaging and Packaging waste and options to strengthen prevention and reuse of packaging – Interim report - 03/07884/AL 23 April 2004

Task 1 : Evaluation of the implementation of the packaging Directive • The directive had two objectives : one environmental “to prevent any impact on the environment” and one economic “to ensure the functioning of the internal market and to avoid obstacles to trade and distortion and restriction of competition”. The minimization of cost was not a target…. but if we want a true evaluation of cost we need to take in consideration a lot of indirect environmental and social cost ( between disposal and recycling) and we need to take account of the directive as it has been concretely (and very differently) transposed into the law of the different Member States.

Introduction : • The text should include data’s concerning quantities of packaging put on the market and quantities of reusable packaging.

Scenarios : • Scenario 3 must be connected with national reality which varies greatly between member states in terms of mandatory targets and in terms of results. We need at least different scenarios for Member States with high rate of recycling and for Member states with low rates. • Scenario 3 should also take into account the fact that the directive has had no or very little influence on countries which had developed a regulation before the entry into force of the Directive (Germany, Austria, France) as well as for the countries which have set targets or achieved results much higher than the European targets.

Impacts of the Directive evaluated from environmental perspective • All the environmental impact of extraction of primary material must be compared with environmental impacts of recycling process (for instance, it is estimated that non-ferrous metal production consumes more than 30% of total electricity consumption in Chile and more than 20% in Australia) . • Environmental impacts must include: littering and water • We need more precise assumptions concerning plastics and metal: plastic recycling does not only concern PET bottles. Steel packaging are much more frequent than aluminium. • Table 5 should include “others prevention measures” which are a legal obligation for all the MS (art. 4 of the Directive). • Reuse should be considered separately • Table 5 completed should be also used for evaluation of environmental impacts

Impacts of the Directive evaluated from economic perspective • From an economic perspective : local and/or regional authorities are key actors to take into consideration. They notably play a crucial role in selective collection and in consumers education which play a critical role on the total costs and on the achievements of the recycling chain. • The source of all the data must be indicated

Task 2 : packaging prevention • Producer responsibility is an instrument which has had a major influence on recycling. It may also prevent packaging producers to put on the market packaging detrimental to the recycling process. But it has had generally no impact on quantitative prevention (as proven by a Belgian study). • Packaging prevention plans have to be defined o without obligation of quantified goals (but as a possibility to do that) o as an instrument of dialogue between private sector and public authorities o as an instrument to be applied by companies of some dimensions o as an instrument which may have different interest when applied at the company level or at the sectoral level

JP. Hannequart

INCPEN COMMENTS ON ECOLAS/PIRA “INTERIM” REPORT ON PACKAGING

OVERVIEW In general, we feel that this study could inform future policy on packaging if it provided: • basic input data on tonnages of materials and energy used for a selection of specific packed products • identification of all the factors that dictate the choice of packaging • an assessment of the drivers for and against “prevention” and re-use.

The current approach of extrapolating lifecycle analysis data on the assumption that there is an average EU system will produce meaningless data. It will be impossible for stakeholders to comment on the findings because the aggregated data is not transparent. It will also hide the fact that data is missing, particularly information about commercial and industrial packaging. Below are comments on the use of lifecycle assessment, the proposed Packaging Environment Indicator, packaging prevention and some of the assumptions made in the study.

LIFECYCLE ANALYSIS / ASSESSMENT After an excellent introduction pointing out that LCAs are unlikely to reveal any significant differences between the environmental impacts of competing packaging systems [page 41], the report states that “even the most simplistic and flawed PEI has the potential to be more accurate than the alternative, which is data-less decision-making.”

This is equivalent to saying that a watch that tells the wrong time is better than no watch at all!

Companies use Lifecycle Analysis to compare different options within defined systems but it is not valid to use it to decide choice of options at a regional or national level. This is because it takes no account of geography (where an emission occurs), timing (when an emission occurs) or of the environment’s ability to tolerate a certain amount of environmental impact. At best, the results can only be a theoretical view of average conditions.

Data for one location cannot be extrapolated for the whole of Europe – the environmental impact of landfilling in a country with a high water table (eg the Netherlands) has a much higher impact than one that doesn’t (eg Ireland). Similarly, recycling can have a higher or lower impact, depending on circumstances.

Aggregation methods, which take the data from life cycle analysis and predict environmental effects, are still under development and their use is controversial.

Economic analysis of these predicted effects is even more controversial and uncertain. For example, the cost of sending two similar bales of a recyclable material to a reprocessing plant will depend on factors such as levels of contamination and where they come from. If they have been hand-sorted from household recyclables the cost will be orders of magnitude more than if they are delivered directly from the back of a shop. Increased financial costs often equate with increased environmental impact, for example, if more energy is needed to clean dirtier material.

This section also points out that the cost of packaging bears a direct relationship to its environmental impact, which it typically does. But there has to be some reference to the effectiveness of the pack in protecting its contents and the cost of potential wastage of the product.

PACKAGING ENVIRONMENT INDICATOR The intention of relating the Packaging Environment Indicator to the product contained by the packaging [2.1.5.1 page 50] is sensible, though the distribution system and consumers’ needs also have to be part of any assessment. The report also makes a valid comparison that measuring packaging in isolation from its product is like measuring tyres while ignoring the vehicle.

This comparison alone should be sufficient to explain why a PEI on packaging cannot work.

When a PEI was first proposed last year the intention was that it should be used by companies to determine the environmental impact of packaging before deciding which pack to choose.

• Model 1 will be a pointless exercise because, as the report itself points out, looking just at the raw material and production stage is insufficient as changes in one stage of the lifecycle influence other stages. • Models 2 and 3 cannot work because even a well-informed packaging designer or technologist does not know the nature of the distribution system for the packed product nor where it might end up, so would have no information about the waste management system.

The current Essential Requirements will ensure that companies assess their packaging against environmental criteria and that their packaging systems are continuously improved, provided all Member States enforce the Requirements. It is not necessary to invent an additional measure.

PACKAGING PREVENTION Pages 104 and 109 – The statements which suggest that Green Dot and similar fees promote the use of lighter and smaller packs need to be critically examined. It is true that lightweighting will reduce the weight-based fees payable on packaging made from a given material; but fees can also be reduced by switching from a lightweight to a heavier material.

Page 118 – The statement that “packaging waste is going up instead of being stabilised or prevented” needs to be placed in context by a discussion of the economic and demographic factors affecting demand for packaging. If the amount of packaging placed on the market has increased, that does not necessarily mean that prevention measures have been unsuccessful.

ASSUMPTIONS Page 6 – A number of the assumptions will give misleading result, eg:

• ignore transportation relating to collection (a report by Scott Wilson for WRAP on plastic bottle recycling, March 2002, shows transport costs eg Chester to Castleford £15.40 per tonne, Torbay to Stratford £17.60 per tonne for 15 tonne loads. This cost has environmental impact also). • ignore colour separation of glass, • ignore the split between aluminium and steel, • assume that all plastics recycling is PET recycling (PET is less than 20% of all plastics packaging and far more polyethylene is recycled than PET),

Study on the Implementation of the Packaging Directive 94/62/EC – Comments of GDB, June 3rd, 2004

1. Packaging prevention potential of refillable bottles

The potential of reducing weight in packaging is limited by the need to achieve mechanical strength as defined by the application. For a 1 litre, one-way PET bottle a minimum weight of 32 g is needed to be able to use it for carbonated soft drinks. A reusable bottle for the same application needs a weight of 62 grams to be able to resist 15 loops. A simple calculation illustrates that by using a refillable bottle instead of a one-way bottle a reduction of 87 % in raw material can be achieved ([32 g –(62g:15)]:32g) in a 15 loop cycle. This example demonstrates the importance of reuse in contributing to prevention.

2. Concentrations of heavy metals in reusable bottle crates

The 1998 German Packaging Ordinance defines the limits for heavy metals for packaging. For reusable packaging like crates used in closed loops exemptions are made. For traditional crates, concentrations of lead and cadmium of between 100 – 500 ppm have been measured. Studies have proved that the heavy metals are not migrating into the product nor are they set free by the recycling processes. Therefore, the crates are, if kept in a closed loop, no immediate threat to the environment. It would appear to make no sense to take this packaging from the market for disposal. Packaging producers and fillers are required to prepare an annual report on the return ratios of packaging with high heavy metal content. The reuse and recycling systems of these packaging materials are well established and the necessary documentation is easily accessible. The measures, already proved to be environmentally sound and economically viable, should be recognised and applied within the European packaging directive.

3. Economic comparison of refillable and one-way bottles

An economic comparison of refillable and one-way bottles has been completed based on data for the year 2000. Meanwhile, an updated review has been carried out in 2004. The Fraunhofer Institute, Dortmund/Germany, has analysed four packaging systems used by medium-sized (40 million bottles per year) and small (20 million bottles per year) companies. The Institute highlights significant cost advantages for both sizes of company in using refillable systems. Only minor differences are evident between refillable glass and refillable PET packaging. The study also illustrates the high material costs of one-way packaging. Please refer to the attached slides demonstrating cost comparisons.

4. Transport distances

A recent survey of transport distances for mineral water producers shows a decrease in distances for refillable glass bottles. As transportation is a significant factor for LCA’s it should be highlighted that this decrease is adding to the environmental benefit of refillable glass bottles. The distances for one-way bottles are increasing due to the distribution logistics of discount retail outlets. In Germany, the average distance for refillable glass bottles is 90 km and for one-way PET bottles is 250 km.

4 June 2004

STUDY ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PACKAGING DIRECTIVE

AND OPTIONS TO STRENGTHEN PREVENTION AND RE-USE

FEVE's comments on the interim report

These comments are submitted on behalf of the European producers of glass packaging containers, for whom FEVE is the representative European trade association. They are structured in accordance with the instructions given on the European Commission's environment website.

Our comments are not exhaustive, and it could well be appropriate to comment further at a later stage: the interim report was prepared very early in the study programme.

Methodological comments

1. Scenarios

The zero recovery scenario for the evaluation from the environmental perspective may possibly be of some help as a reference base for calculation, but it should be recognised that this scenario is purely theoretical. A possible alternative would be to consider the recovery rates actually achieved in 1994, when the Directive was adopted.

2. Use of LCA data

Future reports should indicate clearly the original sources of LCA data used, and the years a) in which they were first reported and b) to which they applied. Reference should also be made to the degree to which the data and processes selected are truly representative of the EU situation and on the boundaries used for analysis, as well as on whether or not the LCAs cited for different types of packaging were carried out on the same basis.

Such data needs to be used with all due caution, particularly where comparisons between different activity chains are to be made or implied, as is recognised in international standards.

3. Packaging Environment Indicator (PEI)

While the consultants have evidently given considerable thought to possible forms of PEI, it is unclear just how and by whom a possible PEI would be used. It seems to us that these considerations should be part of the analysis, if compliance with the prerequisites stated on page 39 are to be properly evaluated.

The uncertainty levels associated with the comparative use of LCA are already high. Should the study conclude that a PEI is feasible, the report should explain how a simplified LCA-based tool would avoid the risk of unjustified distortion of competition in packaging markets.

F E V E 2.

Comments on data quality

At this stage, FEVE offers two general remarks.

1. The draft final report should reflect a proper understanding of the activity chain of each packaging material. The interim report contains some errors as far as glass is concerned. The glass company produces bottles and jars (not virgin raw materials - page 12) from virgin raw materials (and not from pellets - page 45).

2. All tables and charts should clearly indicate such elements as units and data sources.

General comments relating to aspects of the Directive addressed in the study

Heavy metals and other hazardous substances

The study will evaluate the effects on the environment, business and the consumer of reducing the existing limit for the four heavy metals from 100 ppm to lower levels. Article 6 (8g) of Directive 2004/12/EC raises the question of phasing out heavy metals and other hazardous substances in packaging by 2010.

We would draw attention to a number of facts surrounding this issue:

1. Heavy metals occur in the earth’s crust and traces can be present in virgin raw materials.

2. Increased use of recycled materials, as required by EU legislation, may well tend to give rise to an increased presence of traces of heavy metals in packaging. This does not necessarily imply a consequential increase in environmental or health impact, whereas recycling in many cases clearly brings definable environmental benefits.

3. There is no universal proportionality between the concentration of heavy metals and their release into the environment. This is notably the case for glass packaging, from which releases are demonstrably insignificant. The relevant (21st) recital in Directive 94/62/EC makes it clear that the purpose of limiting concentration is to limit the release of these substances into the environment.

4. The Essential Requirements of the Directive already impose a minimisation requirement, and procedures for applying this have recently been developed by CEN in two technical reports (CR 13695-1 & CEN/TR 13695-2).

5. Other EU end-of-life directives (vehicles, electrical equipment) have recognised that heavy metals cannot be totally eliminated.

6. The heavy metal concentration limit came to Europe from the United States, where there is no sign that it will be reduced. Furthermore, the current recommendation there to states which apply it is to exempt until 1 January 2010 packaging that exceeds the limit solely as a result of the addition of recycled materials.

7. In the light of the above, further reduction of the concentration limit could hinder recycling and constitute an obstacle to trade.

______

Comments from EUROPEN on Interim Report of Ecolas/PIRA Study on Implementation of Directive 94/62/EC

1. Approach

EUROPEN appreciates this consultation process initiated by DG Environment. However, we reiterate the concerns expressed to the Commission in April 20031 that the resources allocated to the study are seriously insufficient to produce reliable information on which to base important policy decisions that will affect a broad spectrum of European industry, the environment and society.

The absence of reliable data was a weakness acknowledged in previous packaging studies commissioned by DG Environment such as, the RDC/PIRA study2 and the Coopers & Lybrand/RDC study3. Reusing data already identified as unsound risks disengaging stakeholders and will not be helpful in moving policy forward.

Nevertheless, EUROPEN is sympathetic to the objectives of the study and notwithstanding the resource limitations imposed on the consultants we offer the following comments on the interim report in support of improving the final outcome.

Balance of the Study Packaging is not a stand alone product and its impact has to be considered in the context of the total product life cycle it supports. Also the design of packaging is a complex process and in addition to its basic function of containing, protecting and preserving the contents, it must also respond to changing consumption patterns and social needs.

We find however that the draft report is focused primarily on environmental impact and is insufficiently balanced with the two other pillars of sustainability – social and economic consequences. As an example, the discussion of possible PEI models only considers environmental impact whereas a good indicator should factor in all three parameters.

While it is accepted that the parallel study commissioned by DG Enterprise/Market will address some of the economic consequences of the Directive, environmental criteria for packaging also have economic and social costs. These should be identified by the study.

EUROPEN is also concerned that the focus of the study poses a high risk that future European packaging and packaging waste policy will be based on a continuation of the existing early 1990’s philosophy. We have long ago suggested to the Commission

1 EUROPEN letter of 11/04/2003 to Mr Otto Linher. 2 “Evaluation of costs and benefits for the achievement of reuse and recycling targets for the different packaging materials in the frame of the packaging and packaging waste directive 94/62/EC” – May 2001. 3 Eco-balances for policy-making in the domain of packaging and packaging waste. May 1997. EUROPEN Comments on Ecolas/PIRA Interim Report June 2004 services that in this next phase of revision it is time to “step out of the box” and take a fresh look at where continuation of the existing line of thinking would lead.

This sentiment was been echoed recently by DG Environment Director General Catherine Day in remarks to a Brussels conference where she stated “Our future policy on packaging will be designed to fit into this (6EAP, Thematic Strategies, IPP) wider approach”.4

Prevention Prevention is both qualitative and quantitative and therefore needs to be considered along the full lifecycle of the packed product, not simply packaging and packaging waste.

The study on prevention (together with the reuse question) provides an ideal opportunity to consider the topic within the broader framework of the Sixth Environmental Action Programme as requested by Council and Parliament.5 This approach to the long term future of the Directive was also suggested by the Commission in the explanatory memorandum to the recent short term revision of Directive 94/62/EC.6

It follows therefore that any additional prevention measures considered/proposed by the consultants must be assessed against the thematic strategies to determine if they would be better addressed in those broader contexts.

Furthermore we urge that any additional prevention measures proposed in the study be accompanied by a clear assessment of their added value. Any such assessment should be made against the assumption of a scenario of enforcement of the Essential Requirements in all member states.

Reuse We welcome the decision taken at the experts meeting of 26 May to defer discussion on reuse until the consultant reports further on this question. We support the necessity of a broad debate on this important topic.

Despite the mandate of Council and Parliament on reuse being arguably prejudicial because of its presumption that “encouragement of reuse” should be a preferred option, 7 EUROPEN hopes that the consultants will keep an open mind on the question since no reliable evidence has been submitted to support that assumption.

EUROPEN has recently commissioned a study into certain aspects of this question and will shortly be making the finding of our study available to DG Environment and to the study consultants.

4 Packaging Our Futures Conference, Brussels 1 March 2004. 5 Directive 2004/12/EC Art. 6.9. 6 (COM(2001) 729 Final, 07.12.2001 pages 10, 11 & 18). 7 Directive 2004/12/EC Art.6.8(e). EUROPEN Comments on Ecolas/PIRA Interim Report June 2004

Other Topics of the Study While the Commission has chosen to give prominence to two elements of the report mandated by Council and Parliament – prevention and reuse – care must be taken to ensure that other elements of the mandate are properly addressed. Producer responsibility and an evaluation of the effectiveness, implementation and enforcement of the Essential Requirements are, in EUROPEN’s view, equally important. These elements hold the potential to address prevention issues which constituted a large part of the recent debate in the European Parliament and Council over revision of Directive 94/62/EC.

2. Overall Comments on the Report

Data The Report foresees heavy reliance (in some cases sole reliance) on existing data whereas a great deal of necessary data is either not available or, where it exists, is of very questionable quality. The solution suggested by the consultants, to use extrapolations where there is no data, risks that the ultimate outcome will be even more unreliable.

Use of average data The consultants have indicated their intention of using European average data to calculate environmental impacts and to combine impacts into a single number to ‘simplify’ interpretation. EUROPEN cautions that such an approach would further call into question the validity of any assumptions made in the report.

PEI The consultants have asked stakeholders to assist in the assessment of three PEI models and EUROPEN members are prepared to assist with this task. However, before doing so we will require prior guidance from the consultants concerning the intended use of such an indicator.

Would the indicator be intended for the purposes of development of future legislation or for the guidance of economic operators or as a tool for consumer information?

Once this question is answered EUROPEN will submit more detailed comments on the concept of a PEI.

Transparency Because of the danger of compounding errors from previous reports by use of questionable data we regard transparency as an essential element of the final report. Policy makers should be made fully aware of any limitations/gaps in data used for the study.

For the same reasons there is need for the inclusion of sensitivity analysis by the consultant in their work. EUROPEN Comments on Ecolas/PIRA Interim Report June 2004

3. Specific Comments and Recommendations

Page Section

4 Figure 3 Contrary to what is stated in the text, Figure 3, indicates that packaging waste generation per capita has not changed much in general (against an approximate 10% increase in GDP in the same period). Any differences seen are likely to fall within the accuracy of the data reported.

Recommendation: Add this caveat to the report.

5 1.2 An LCA-driven approach does not include all environmental aspects for example renewability is not covered.

1.2.1 Data relating to landfill and incineration has been taken from White, Franke and 5 Hindle, 1995. However since the time of publication, there have been enormous reductions in incinerator emissions (eg UK Government review of environmental and health effects of waste management, May 2004). Use of old data will generate misleading results. In addition the authors have indicated that the data used (even in the second edition published in 2001) are approximate and should be used to provide only an initial, rough, ”first shot” analysis. They specifically caution against the use of this data in other than in an indicative way and emphasise the need to obtain specific data for any particular local situation.

Recommendation: The consultants should seek to obtain the most up to date data available and discuss with the authors the accuracy of any data proposed to be used from the book

14 1.3.5.2 The statement that encouragement of reuse systems should increase the turnover of packaging recyclers requires explanation. If re-conditioners of reusable packs are meant then this should be stated as they are not the same as recycling companies.

Recommendation: Consultants should provide evidence to support this statement

15 1.3.5.2 Recommendation: Add to this section recognition of the involvement of municipalities in packaging waste management.

EUROPEN Comments on Ecolas/PIRA Interim Report June 2004

15 1.3.5.2 The report suggests “the turnover of the compliance schemes may be an indication of the turnover of the whole packaging recovery sector”.

EUROPEN has some reservations about this conclusion BUT more importantly it would then be essential to be sure of the cost of these schemes. The following sections (p16-p36) are all based on cost assumptions that we believe are well below the true costs of these schemes. Therefore there is a risk of repeatedly understating this input in later, important comparisons such as those addressed on p 36.

Recommendation: Consultant should qualify the assumption or else obtain accurate data to support it. Pro-Europe should be asked for an independent opinion on this topic.

17 1.3.5.2 It will be very difficult to get turnover figures for compliance schemes operating in the commercial & industrial sector, as these are commercially sensitive.

Comment: Without this information, Table 7 will be meaningless.

21,24, 1.3.5.3 The fee paid for putting packaging on the market is generally paid by the 25 packer/filler/importer and not by the packaging industry/packaging manufacturers.

Recommendation: Please correct the statement

42 2.1.3.2 When considering PEI, the consultants must appreciate that packaging is a system composed of consumer unit, secondary units and transport packaging and that the total system needs to be considered.

Comment: Any proposal for a PEI which ignores this consideration is of no value and worse still could result in negative environmental policy decisions.

42 After pointing out that LCAs are unlikely to reveal any significant differences between the environmental impacts of competing packaging systems [page 41], the report goes on to say “even the most simplistic and flawed PEI has the potential to be more accurate than the alternative, which is data-less decision- making.”

Comment: Despite these agreed limitations, the consultants propose development of a simple PEI. However, their chosen "better than nothing approach" is not convincing. Due to the incredible complexity of the issue, which has been recognized in the study, a scenario could be assumed that any potential mandatory common PEI would need to allow for so many exceptions for specific products, materials or systems to ensure reasonable consistency, that it could easily end up in a bureaucratic nightmare, with foreseeable legal challenges.

EUROPEN Comments on Ecolas/PIRA Interim Report June 2004

50 2.1.5.1 Comment: The purpose of a possible PEI according to Directive 2004/12/EC article 6.8 (c) is to "render packaging waste prevention simpler and more effective". It is not to minimise the environmental impact of packaged goods along their life cycle. However, any reliable PEI would need to take account of the nature of the product being packaged, distribution chain, consumer needs…etc.

Comment: Consultants please clarify what precisely they propose the PEI should indicate.

86 / The history of the input to the packaging standards made by the “public interest 91 stakeholders” needs to be clarified before any conclusions can be drawn. For whatever reason, these stakeholders did not take part in the discussions, so their views were untested in debate with the experts in the Working Groups. It is therefore unreasonable to assert that the mandate was not fulfilled because the environmentalists did not participate, when they themselves did not to take part in the Working Group meetings.

Recommendation: We recommend that the consultants check this statement with the Commission appointed consultant for the mandated CEN standards work.

91 Although it purported to be a legal analysis, the EEB publication referred to was in fact a political polemic.

Recommendation: The words “from a legal point of view” should be deleted.

91 The statement that “for all of the six mandated standards, the mandate requirements were not fulfilled” is presented as a statement of fact, referenced to EEB. In fact it is EEB’s opinion. The legal position is that one of the five original (2000) mandated standards was deemed to be in full compliance with the mandate, and one other was deemed to be in partial compliance. No decision has as yet been made on how many of the six current mandated standards (i.e. the five revised standards plus the one unamended standard) are in compliance with the mandate requirements.

Recommendation: Consultants please correct this factual error.

95 2.4.1.2. There are no standards prEN 13695-1 and prEN 13695-2 under development. CR 13695-1 and CR 13695-2 are CEN technical reports published in 2000 and 2002 respectively (a new edition of CR 13695-2 will be published in 2004).

Comment: Please correct this error.

102 2.4.4 Proposal for a reduction of concentration levels of heavy metals present in packaging.

Comment: We note that the four named heavy metals at the present maximum level of 100ppm are already normally at the level of impurities and that the level of impurities proposed/adopted for other similar legislation (eg WEEE) is higher.

EUROPEN Comments on Ecolas/PIRA Interim Report June 2004

104 / The statements which suggest that Green Dot and similar fees promote the use of 109 lighter and smaller packs need to be critically examined. It is true that light weighting will reduce the weight-based fees payable on packaging made from a given material; but fees can also be reduced by switching from a lightweight material such as PET to a heavier material such as glass.

Comment: Consultants please note this opinion.

118 The statement that “packaging waste is going up instead of being stabilised or prevented” needs to be justified (see comment on figure 3, page 4) this will require a discussion of the economic and demographic factors affecting demand for packaging.

Comment 1: The fact that the amount of packaging placed on the market has increased does not necessarily mean that prevention measures have been unsuccessful.

Comment 2: This apparent misunderstanding underscores the need for better data linked to demographic and consumption trends. Such data would be available from the European Shopping Baskets study which has been proposed by EUROPEN.

Recommendation: Consultants should refer to the report from the Commission to Council and Parliament on implementation of Community waste legislation for the period 1998-2000.8 See chapter 4 Quantities of Packaging Waste, Recovery and Recycling Rates

2.5.6 Comment: Member State prevention targets in general refer to Municipal Solid Waste and not packaging waste.

118 Comment: 1.3 billion tons EU waste refers to all waste not just MSW.

Does report refer to packaging on the market or packaging waste through market to final stages? EUROPEN’s view is that diversion from final disposal is more relevant.

Recommendation: Consultant should clearly distinguish between packaging entering the market and packaging waste for final disposal. Failure to make this distinction risks causing serious misinterpretation of data and the true situation.

Comment: We question the claims that reliable analysis of packaging waste streams are not available. The Commission has data on a material basis. We also query how the consultants can claim packaging waste is increasing in line with total waste growth and then go on to state that data is not available.

8 COM(2003) 250 Final 19.05.2003. EUROPEN Comments on Ecolas/PIRA Interim Report June 2004

119 2.5.6.2 Comment: We do not understand the necessity/importance of including a reference to biodegradable packaging in this aspect of the study. Its importance is certainly not justified within present trends.

130 Comment: If the intention is to look at the Independent Review of Container Deposit Legislation in New South Wales then this should be counterbalanced by also considering the report by EPA Victoria (Container Deposit Legislation – Financial Impacts). This report applied the NSW methodology to another Australian state and found many of the assumptions in the original report to be highly questionable.

Recommendation: Consultants should consider the State of Victoria, Australia, EPA report.

4 June 2004

EuPC Comments on Ecolas/Pira interim report of 23rd April 2004

A. Methodological comments – comments relating specifically to the methodology applied

General

The methodological approach, subject to the task, is comprehensible, especially the scenario approach is supported. Concerning the structure it may be asked why the authors did not respect the order given in Art.1, § 3, in the Directive 2004/12/EC amending Art. 6 of Directive 94/62/EC on Packaging and Packaging Waste, according to which the report should analyze as follows:

1) Evaluation of the effectiveness, implementation and enforcement of the essential requirements 2) Additional prevention measures to reduce environmental impact of packaging as far as possible without compromising its essential functions 3) The possible development of a packaging environment indicator to render packaging waste preventions simpler and more effective 4) Packaging waste prevention plans … (see page 40).

Such a methodological approach might already answer the question if it is sense making to develop a packaging environment indicator before analyzing as per order if it is possible to develop it.

Packaging as stand-alone-product or part of a system

In different parts of the study it is rightly underlined that only packaging with similar functions can be compared. It should be pointed out this refers also to the filled good as analogous packaging for different filled goods can have different ecological effects (logistics, period of use, recovery etc.). Neither in the text nor in the literature list there is a reference to existing results of systematic considerations of filled good and packaging, e.g. for food products, like the studies by Kooijman or the Fraunhofer Institut and GVM „Untersuchung zu möglichen ökologischen Effekten bei der Substitution von Kleinverpackungen“ (“Study on possible ecological effects at the substitution of small packaging”), March 2000. The latter study is a systematic ecological approach for coffee cream- and cream cheese packaging which shows how the ecologically unfavourable smaller packaging becomes, under consideration of the packed food including decay, remaining residues, etc., an ecologically favourable option (summary of the study will be handed over on 26th May). 2

However, the approach to generate a relation between packaging and packed product by the typical retail price of the product in Euros seems more than questionable (page 50).

PEI in general

The present interim report discusses different forms of a packaging environment indicator. Further questions like the implementation cost of a packaging environment indicators or how it will be applicable in practice are not yet dealt with, as already in the discussion about the form of the PEI there are a lot of insurmountable obstacles appearing. EuPC expressly supports the reservations in 2.1.3 concerning the PEI concept but clearly contradicts the sentence on page 42 „however, even the most simplistic and flawed PEI has the potential to be more accurate than the alternative, which is data-less decision-making.” PEI could make decision-making even worse than it is today. In the objective to come to a single-point figure the question how the indicators would have to be weighed politically and who would weigh them was not considered.

EuPC supports the position on page 43 “it must be assumed that the users have limited life cycle assessment knowledge and experience”. In order to deal with this problem it is tried to keep the tools as simple as possible, although in contradiction to ISO 14 041 (page 44, 2. indent. „in order to minimize complexity it is not possible to extract the inventory results from the tool for further analysis”). Therefore no ecological improvement of the packaging is possible as long as it is unknown which effect depends on which cause. Anyway, if the users have limited LCA-knowledge and experience, how will they be able to find out the relevant system parameters which are necessary to use the tools? Such system parameters are for example time and number of trips, transport distances, substitution factors, allocations, benefits, use of recycled material, non-returnable parts in multi-trip-systems, the proportion of primary, secondary and tertiary packaging and many more. These parameters cannot be furnished as a model, they must be determined individually from case to case. In the discussion about the limitations of the PEI-model on page 43 also the uncertainty limits are mentioned. Experiences from life cycle assessments show that particularly system parameters like distribution distances are often more decisive for the result than the uncertainty limits. It is doubted if it will ever be possible to leave this task to a single company, e.g. SME, and to come to reliable results.

Packaging environment indicator in detail

From our point of view there are a lot of questions to be answered for the further work on the models 1-3. A choice of questions is stated below:

Model 1: Why not considering the whole life cycle, as for several packagings life cycle periods, after the manufacturing of the packaging, are decisive for the ecological overall result, e.g. transport distances, recycling benefits etc. ?

3

Why does figure 11, on page 47, represent the energy content of packaging, if at the same time there is no defined possibility to use this energy content, e.g. by energy recovery (incomplete consideration of the life cycle)?

How does the inexperienced user know which parts from table 10 „snapshot of the energy table” he has to choose for his concrete system?

How can be excluded that the energy input representing different environmental effects produces a false ecological image, especially in cases where a system is characterised by • a strong aquatic nutrification and/or • higher land use and/or • the use of renewable resources as source of energy • a significant ecotoxicity ?

In a word: The energy input is far from representing the ecological range of a packaging system, the above-mentioned indicators have nothing to do with the energy input.

Model 2 and 3: The only difference between model 2 and 3 is that in model 2 two indicators and in model 3 four indicators are applied. There is no information why these indicators were preferred to others, is this a sign of political preference, who has set these priorities, how are the indicators evaluated and correlated? What does the “category final waste for disposal“ mean, does it include the incineration of waste or is it just landfill? If the incineration of waste is included, isn’t there an overlapping with the category “global warming“?

B. Comments on the data – more specifically: quality of the data; relevance of the data, availability of alternative data

The following studies and their results should be considered:

• Optimierung von Kunststoffverpackungen (Optimization of plastics packaging), GVM Wiesbaden 2002 (Study and special edition in English in the magazine „Plastics“ 6/2004 are handed out). The study shows in every detail that on the German plastics packaging market 300.000 t plastics are economized or, in other words: to pack the same quantity of filled goods with the packaging from 1991, additional 300.000 t plastics would have to be used today.

• Untersuchung zu möglichen ökologischen Effekten bei der Substitution von Kleinverpackungen (Analysis of possible ecological effects at the substitution of small packaging), Fraunhofer Institut und GVM, March 2000. This study shows, among others, details of a systematic evaluation of packed goods (food products and packaging) and the limits of the isolated consideration of packaging with concrete LCA-data.

4

The difficulties concerning the official statistics of the packaging production are described by both authors, therefore the available data of the packaging market seem to be most uncertain. Also the national statistics are misleading, e.g. in Germany the production of packaging films is not listed as part of the packaging statistics but as semi-finished products. It must be taken into consideration that around 50% of the German plastics packaging market are films. The exports of packaging waste off the EU, e.g. to Far East, are hardly covered by the statistics, either. Statistics and evaluations of the national or European sectorial associations should be included in this case, if they seem reliable.

C. General comments – general viewpoints on the aspects of the directive addressed in the study

The prevention aspect is thoroughly treated in the study, however not enough as regarding

• the minimization and prevention of packaging material in the different packaging segments during the last years (see GVM-study in Germany), • the voluntary application and proper enforcement of the use of the CEN- standard on prevention, • the key driver towards minimization, which means the cost. A study would be valuable to show that the cost pressure increases in the packaging industry and thus the obligation to save packaging material and energy without reducing the packaging function.

The application of the packaging environment indicator model is judged with utmost reservation all the more as existing ISO-standards are neglected and the entire life cycle approach is abandoned with unforeseeable consequences for the results and possibly also the market. EuPC disbelieves the basic assumption of the PEI model that a limited life cycle approach and reduced indicators allow a simplification of the environmental assessment of a packaging. With the current computer-based tools not the question is decisive, from the point of view of easy handling, if a complete or partial life-cycle, or 2-, 4- or 10-impact categories are applied. Decisive for a validated ecological result is the detection of specific system parameters of an analysed packaging system. This, however, requires the know-how and experience which the addressees of the PEI do not have and cannot have, as stated by the authors themselves. If this is the case, should then the former standardized LCA-approach which covers the whole life cycle be abandoned?

EEB Comments on

Draft Study on the Implementation of the Packaging Directive and options to strengthen prevention and re-use

11/06/200404

Introduction

The scope of the “study on the implementation of the Packaging Directive and options to strengthen prevention and reuse” is determined by article 6 of the amended Packaging Directive.

Article 6 8. The Commission shall, as soon as possible and no later than 30 June 2005, present a report to the European Parliament and the Council on the progress of the implementation of this Directive and its impact on the environment, as well as on the functioning of the internal market. The report shall take into account individual circumstances in each member State. It shall cover the following:

a) an evaluation of the effectiveness, implementation and enforcement of the essential requirements b) additional prevention measures to reduce the environmental impact of packaging as far as possible without compromising its essential functions c) the possible development of a packaging environment indicator to render packaging waste prevention simpler and more effective d) packaging waste prevention plans e) encouragement of re-use and, in particular, comparison of the costs and benefits of re-use and those of recycling f) producer responsibility including its financial aspects g) efforts to reduce further and, if appropriate, ultimately phase out heavy metals and other hazardous substances in packaging by 2010.

The EEB is of the opinion, that the above listed points should be evaluated in the light of the overall environmental policy goals as formulated in the decision No. 1600/2002/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme. In Article 8.1 the objectives of the Programmes are specified, in particular “achieving a significant overall in the volumes of waste generated through waste prevention initiatives, better resource efficiency and a shift towards more sustainable production and consumption pattern” and the encouragement of re-use. The recent EEA report Signals 2004 stressed that “the generation of packaging waste is closely coupled to economic growth and consumption pattern. From 1997 t0 2001 the amount of packaging waste

1 increased in 10 of 15 older Member States and by 7 % in the then European Union as a whole. Preliminary projections suggest that volumes of packaging waste are likely to continue rising substantially in the future.”

General Comments

The draft study intends to widen the scope by evaluating the economic and social impacts of the Packaging Directive in addition to the environmental impacts. EEB strongly criticises this approach. EEB is of the opinion that any impact assessment of the Packaging Directive should be related to its objectives, environmental protection and avoidance of obstacles to the internal market and primarily environmental protection. The later aspect will be covered by a study on behalf of DG Enterprise. In addition, the Topic Center on Waste and Material Flows (TCWMF) is currently carrying out an effectiveness evaluation ( cost-benefit analyses) on packaging waste management systems for five member states (Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Italy and the United Kingdom).

In consequence, the economic aspects of the of the Packaging Directive will be covered by the mentioned two studies. In the view of EEB any further addressing of economic issues, beyond the specific attempt to collate information from existing studies on the costs and benefits of re-use and recycling, is not required and would only lead to an unbalanced analyse of the Packaging Directive in favour of economic issues. Therefore the EEB suggest to remove point 1.3. of the study (impacts of the Directive evaluated from economic perspective) and invest these resources in the other aspects of the study.

The EEB notes that the chapter on re-use is by far the weakest. It welcomes the decision made at the workshop on May 26 2004 to have a separate meeting on re-use aspects only. EEB stressed that beside re-use of beverages the re-use of transport packaging and its environmental benefits need to be explored in more detail.

Re-use systems have a high potential to prevent packaging waste and reduce CO2 emission thereby adding to climate protection. For example, a reduction of established reuse beverage systems by 20% would lead to an increase of around 1.2 tons of packaging waste1. This example clearly illustrates the potential of reuse for saving resources. The environmental benefits of re-use systems are also proved by life cycle assessments which cover various environmental indicators. Recent studies on beverage systems assessing several relevant impact categories such as global warming, resource use and others demonstrate the environmental advantage of reuse systems2.

The EEB recommends that the study actively investigate the encouragement of re-use systems and prevention systems within Member States and • identifies and lists suitable instruments to encourage re-use systems and other additional prevention measures (e.g. taxes, re-use targets, deposit schemes, distribution system changes): • evaluates existing EU-legislation and identifiers regulations hindering measures with regard to re-use.

1 See: Mitteilung der Regierung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland an die Kommission der Europäischen Gemeinschaften, 29.04.1996, data festimated by the German Environmental Agency 2 Ökobilanz für Getränkeverpackungen II, Umweltbundesamt , 2000 2 The EEB would like to stress that the study’s mandate as defined in Article 6.8 of the Packaging Directive is also to investigate ‘additional prevention measures’. Here it is important to differentiate between prevention of packaging / generation of packaging waste and prevention of the impacts of packaging waste management options (recycling/disposal). Such measures should be evaluated by the study (see comments below).

Specific comments

The following comments are made following the structure of the draft study.

Task 1: Evaluation of the Implementation of the Packaging Directive

Ad 1.2 Impacts of the Directive evaluated from environmental perspective The study envisages to evaluate the environmental impacts via a life cycle assessment carried out by PIRA based on three scenarios. Scenario 1:Zero Recycling (changed to zero recovery) Scenario 2: Baseline Scenario (scenario without Packaging Directive in place) Scenario 3: Packaging Directive

1.2.1 Data The data referred to regarding landfill and incineration for all scenarios are based on a study published in 1995. The EEB recommends to carry out a literature research, since a second edition on the referred study is available and other recent data on the waste treatment situation within EU-15 might be available. It is pointed out that even recent information on the waste treatment can only give a rough picture, in particular if the data is aggregated to the whole of Europe. No distinction is made between waste incineration in waste incinerators and co- incineration of waste. Furthermore, no information on the quality of waste treatment options (e.g. emission standards, energy efficiency ) is given. The key assumptions relating to the models are very basic and need to be refined e g. by data provided by the packaging industry.

The impacts to be reported are of a crucial meaning. The prioritising of factors chosen (e.g. energy and acidification) determines the outcome of the results and has a political dimension. The factor as such does not imply the quality of the environmental benefit e.g. energy input as such does not give information on the way and efficiency the energy is used. From an environmental point of view the quality of use is very important. Double-counting has to be avoided e.g. energy input and abiotic depletion (oil equivalent) overlap to a certain degree. Furthermore it is unclear how environmental benefits related to reuse are beverages but also transport packaging. The EEB raises the question, if the saving of resource is only linked to energy gain?

In addition, the methods by which the impacts are evaluated, influence the outcome. This is of interest for the parameter ecotoxicity. The impacts of nutrification can be distinguished in terrestrial and aquatic impacts. From an environmental point this distinction allows a more detailed analysis regarding the media air and soil. The EEB therefore suggests to apply this approach. Regarding the toxicity of particulates and aerosols the question on how the secondary particulates are evaluated should be addressed.

The EEB is aware of the complexity of the set task. Nevertheless, major difficulties are seen in the aggregation of information on individual Member States to data on the EU-15 level. Furthermore, the questions which impact categories to choose, the methods to evaluate them and the prioritising of the impact categories needs to be addressed in detail. Overall, the EEB 3 questions the suitability of the LCA approach to carry out a complex task as evaluating the environmental impacts of the Packaging Directive at the EU level. LCAs are considered as a tool best suited to assessing the environmental performance of clearly defined and comparable packaging systems. It is suggested to consider alternatives to evaluate the environmental impact of the Packaging Directive, such as more desegregated and descriptive approaches in order to gain a more transparent understanding of the data quality and assumptions made.

Ad 1.3. Impacts of the Directive evaluated from economic perspective

As pointed out above, this issue (internal market) is been dealt with by a different study. Therefore, the EEB is concerned that by focusing further on economic aspects the environmental dimension is weakened.

In a recent input on impact assessments to the Council of Minister the EEB highlighted that practice shows that in Impact Assessment impacts are most often described in terms of short– term quantified economic effects. In conclusion there is an urgent need to improve the methodology, to develop an assessment model that gives equal attention to less tangible impacts such as health and environmental benefits. The EEB is of the opinion that any overview on the economic activity of the packaging chain should also account for the way the economy impacts the environment. The study does not take into consideration how environmental damage can be adequately valued for the calculation of economic welfare.

1.3.5.4 Impacts on the potential for innovation and technological development

It is stated that that the technological impact - in the sense of innovation – is at best- limited. The EEB questions this statement. For example, the sorting technologies and recycling technologies for new materials (PET) improved over the last couple of years so that the mainly hand-sorting technology nearly vanished towards a more efficient and automatic facilities.

Furthermore, the consideration of innovation should take a wider perspective – including innovation in packaging design, but also, and more importantly, innovation in system design both physical (e.g. transport and supply logistic networks - for e.g. reducing transport distances and complexity, supplying in bulk instead of ‘single dose’ packaging) and fiscal (e.g. taxation of packaging or packaging materials). It

Ad 1.4 Impacts of the Directive screened from social perspective There is not enough information on the available data nor the methods to evaluate this issue available, to be able to comment on this point, however the same arguments as for economic evaluation apply, the study should focus on the environmental aspects

Ad 1.5 Compare the packaging and packaging waste Directive with two scenarios

The study intends to aggregate the evaluated impacts (economic, social, environmental) for the chosen scenarios in a way one can judge the options. Suggested are: • Cost-benefit analysis • Cost-effectiveness analysis 4 • Multi-criteria analysis

EEB fears that three complicated parameters (economic, social, environmental) will be condensed to a simplistic graph or figure that might lead to misinterpretation. A proper interpretation of such aggregated data is not easily possible. The EEB believes that a descriptive approach is more suitable to reflect the actual status quo.

Task 2: Packaging Prevention

Missing chapter (s)

The EEB suggests to include an additional chapter addressing ‘additional prevention measures’ (see General Comments), this should be subdivided into consideration of prevention of packaging waste generation and prevention of packaging waste management impacts (reduction of disposal).

The former can take a variety of forms including a clear prevention definition, strong data and monitoring guidelines, active support mechanisms for re-use (e.g. labelling and harmonisation of sizes) system changes (local supply chains versus long distance) and taxes as well as fiscal incentives.

The latter can take the form of recycling standards and taxes. In particular the options to set up material and recycling standards should be evaluated in order to improve the environmental performance of packaging recycling.

Furthermore, the study should investigate the necessity for obligations on and guidelines for data monitoring schemes of packaging prevention and prevention of packaging waste impacts in particular data such as • total consumption of packaging • total consumption per material • packaging licensed for re-use/recycling scheme • total percentage of re-use • re-use of transport packaging • re-use of beverages • total percentage of recycling (distinction of material and feedstock recycling) • recycling rate per material percentage of secondary material used in packaging

Ad 2.1 Indicators for the environmental performance of packaging (PEI)

The key question in order to judge the usefulness of PEI is: What is PEI used for? Since this questions is so far not addressed, the EEB finds it hard to comment on the issue. It is therefore suggested to explore different possible applications such as: • PEI as an information tool for the consumer e.g. to communicate benefits of re-use and recycling; • PEI as a technical guideline for the packaging industry, • PEI as a legislative measure/instrument. In general EEB is of the opinion that only proper LCAs (at an appropriate level, with defined boundaries, based on transparent reliable data) can provide reliable information on all

5 environmental impacts of packaging. Any LCA “light” version will tend to result in hugely simplified conclusions, approximating total environmental impacts by very reduced environmental criteria.

Ad 2.2 Packaging prevention plans

In general, the EEB is of the opinion that packaging prevention plans have the potential to require concrete packaging prevention action different levels (sectoral/national) and consequently can achieve environmental objectives, especially through use of targets. The success of the measures depend on the quality of the prevention plans (who sets the targets?), their obligatory nature (in case of sectoral plans – links to licensing etc) and their practical implementation (monitoring of set targets, verifiability, enforcement efforts, learning and improvement cycles, availability of progress reports). The assessment of packaging prevention plans should investigate these aspects in more detail

Nevertheless, success regarding the prevention of packaging waste and the prevention of environmental impacts is not limited to Member States that set up prevention plans. It is suggested that the study also evaluates prevention aspects within countries without a prevention plan (see: General Comments and Task 2: missing chapter on additional prevention measures).

Ad 2.3 Essential requirements

Crucial to implementation to the comprehensive essential requirements in annex II of the packaging directive is the choice of CEN standardisation to implement them. The EEB would therefore like to suggest that evaluation of the implementation of the current essential requirements as regards the use of CEN standardisation, the EEB position papers (will be forwarded to the consultant) are considered. In brief, , the revised standards on packaging continue to be questioned by the EEB firstly on the ground of inefficient mandate revision secondly on the basis of technical content see ECOS comments in annex ) and thirdly because of procedural mistakes - for example the rejection of the comments submitted by ECOS during the CEN UAP procedure (acceptance procedure) by a consultant of the Commission are considered as a procedural mistake.

Ad. 2.4 Heavy metals and other hazardous substances

The EEB suggests to focus the investigation on hazardous substances not only on the option to reduce existing levels of heavy metals but also to look into the question if substances like antimony and chlorine in particular where there might be of a potential problem with regard to packaging recycling and high quality use of the secondary materials (i.e. avoiding down cycling)

6 Ad. 2.5 Producer responsibility

The purpose of the chapter needs to be clarified. Producer responsibilities should be analysed for measures that • create financial responsibility – and how these actively and specially encourage packaging prevention and reduction of impacts (both in unit design and system design- concerning system design it would be useful to look at the packaging USERS – the retailers and product manufacturers and how they are made responsible to prevent packaging and packaging impacts), • create political responsibility – for example obligatory packaging prevention plans with targets. covering aspects of producer responsibility in the sense of producer prevention plan .

Ad 2.5.5 Prevention targets and landfill bans

Concerning prevention targets the EEB would like to stress that these targets should be defined as the reduction in total generation of packaging waste (reuse included, recycling not). Other targets should be seen as targets for the reduction of disposal and prevention of impacts..

Concerning landfilling, the EEB also supports a dedicated waste recycling legislative framework, that sets up the various tools need to implement and accompany the objectives set for waste recycling, namely:

- bans for certain easy to recycle waste streams going to landfill and incineration - set recycling quota for certain waste product stream, - inclusion of technical standards for recycling in waste stream legislation

Therefore, the EEB supports a ban for the disposal of packaging waste as a measure to ensure reduced impacts of packaging and ensure that steps are taken to require fully recyclable or re- usable packaging. However, it is important to evaluate the ‘surrounding’ conditions to such bans as they are crucial in the assessment of such actions. Also crucial is evaluation the defacto implementation of the packaging directive in some member states. For example, the current practise of incinerating paper (including packaging paper) in Denmark is contradicting efforts to increase the environmental benefits gained by the material recycling of paper.

Ad. 3 Packaging re-use

See remarks in General Comments. The EEB will comment in more detail on the re-use topic after the additional dedicated re-use workshop has taken place.

For more information please contact:

Melissa Shinn, EEB Phone: +0032 2289 1300 Email: [email protected]

Susanne Hempen, NABU Phone: 0049 228 4036 165 Email: [email protected]

7

Annex 1

EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL CITIZENS ORGANISATION FOR STANDARDISATION ORGANISATION EUROPEENNE ENVIRONNEMENTALE CITOYENNE DE NORMALISATION

ECOS ASBL – Boulevard de Waterloo, 34 – 1000 Brussels – Belgium Tel. : + 32 2 289 10 93

ECOS comments on revised draft standards on

Packaging

Comments on draft standards :

- prEN 13428 – Packaging – Requirements specific to the manufacturing and composition – Prevention by source reduction - prEN 13429 – Packaging - Reuse - prEN 13430 – Packaging - Requirements for packaging recoverable by material recycling - prEN 13431 – Packaging – Requirements for packaging recoverable in the form of energy recovery, including specification of minimum inferior calorific value. submitted to a Unique Acceptance Procedure (UAP) in CEN from 2004-09-25 until 2004-03-25.

These drafts are revisions of EN 13428 to EN 13431 published in 2000. These standards had been mandated to CEN by a mandate (M/200). This mandate called for the establishment of European Standards that could give packaging a presumption of conformity to the essential requirements of European Parliament and Council directive 94/62/EC of 20 December 1994 on packaging and packaging waste. As CEN delivered the standards to the European Commission in 2000, some Members States objected to the publication of the references of the EN in the Official Journal of the European Communities. Subsequently, references to only 2 standards were published in the OJEC.

In order to correct this situation, the European Commission allocated a new mandate to CEN, to immediately launch revision procedures of the standards. Mandate M/317 was accepted by CEN in February 2002. CEN/TC 261 "Packaging" was requested to proceed to the necessary modifications.

The drafts, which are now submitted to a UAP, are the response of CEN/TC 261 to the objections made by Member States in 2000. However, as the modifications made do not change fundamentally the approach taken in the first edition, it is likely that these drafts will still be rejected by the European Commission.

ECOS wishes therefore to oppose to the publication of these drafts as European Standards. A general rationale is that, as stated in their introduction, they are based on a similar

8 approach to EN ISO 9000 and EN ISO 14001. Therefore, they deal with design and production processes and customer-supplier relationship. They do not give any requirements for individual packaging items, and therefore cannot be considered as providing technical solutions on how to comply with the essential requirements of the directive.

ECOS wishes to submit the following detailed technical comments for each draft. EN 13428 - Packaging - Prevention

In general: EN 13428 does not follow the target to optimise existing packaging with respect to environmental requirements, but rather argues against the request for such optimisation by referring to general performance criteria. The logic of EN13428 is to find any limiting performance criteria which keeps the supplier clean from any change of his actual packaging by determining a critical area which does not allow further reduction of packaging weight or volume.

Chapter 3.1 definition of "prevention by source reduction" therefore includes primary, secondary and tertiary packaging. It does not focus on the packaging component but focuses on the total weight of the packaging. The result of that restricted focus is, that if there is found a critical area for one packaging component, all other components do not have to be considered for optimisation any more. This leads to the fact, that if for the glass bottle (Example 2 of Annex B) there is stated a critical area for the impact resistance of the glass bottle itself, all other components as closures and labels may not be minimised any further. This means, that this bottle may wear numerous labels covering the total surface of the bottle and additional booklets as long as the consumer information (advertisement) is guaranteed.

In the same time, while ten general performance criteria for packaging requirements are listed in Annex 3 of EN 13428, the only ecological performance criteria taken into consideration is the weight and/or volume of the packaging. After 20 years of life cycle assessment discussion, this can not be accepted as state of the technique or as the state of the art. The negative environmental impact of a specific packaging material is not its weight nor its volume, but the emissions to air, soil and water resolving from the production and waste treatment of the packaging. It is as well not determined only by the question of hazardous substances listed under 67/548/EEC and 1999/45/EC but by several environmental parameters, like the emission of green house gases to the air or emissions of phosphorus to the water etc. For a state of the art assessment of the environmental optimisation potential of a certain packaging, a differentiation of the environmental burden of the mean packaging materials is undeniable.

Amendments to prEN 13428-2004 Concerning - 3 Terms and definitions, 3.1 prevention by source reduction: Replace.....",of primary and/or secondary and/or tertiary packaging,"... by ...... "packaging and its components and/or constituents where appropriate,"....

Reason: 94/62/EEC sets its focus on all types of packaging primary, secondary and tertiary. Therefore it does not make any sense to repeat it in that specific definition. The assessment of all packaging components and in some cases of packaging constituents is basic for an adequate environmental assessment of the packaging.

Concerning - 4.2. Packaging Assessment, 4.2.1 General (reworded): The supplier shall be able to demonstrate by the determination of a critical area that the minimum adequate amount of environmental burden of the packaging has been reached

9 taking into account the basic ranking of packaging material following Annex E against all the "performance criteria" included in clause 5. In those cases where the assessment procedure shows optimisation potential a state of the art life cycle assessment shall be worked out.

Reason: Focusing solely on weight and/or volume as environmental parameters will lead to massive miss management. As a first step of assessment to find weak points of a specific packaging a simplified method shall be available with this standard. If there is need for more detailed research to decide between two packaging options, a detailed life cycle assessment is possible and adequate. Most packaging producers and many big fillers still proceed like this for many years with good success.

Annex E has to be worked out - data is available in several LCA studies purchased on the market. It shall include a list of not more than 100 general types of packaging material giving calculation factors for the packaging material weight.

EN 13429 Packaging - Reuse

Concerning "number of trips or rotations" The definition of "reuse packaging" given in European Directive 94/62/EC requires a "certain number" of trips or rotations and asks for a specified "minimum number" of trips or rotations as a minimum requirement for reuse packaging. There is no "minimum number" defined in the directive nor does it ask for such a "fixing" by standardisation within article 9 and Annex II 2. M/200 really did not ask for such a fixing.

EN 13429-20000 neither fixed such a "minimum number" nor gives a method for measuring and calculating the number of trips. It is restricted to technical and organisational requirements for reuse packaging systems.

M/317 now asks definitively for a method for measuring this "number of trips/rotations" but even does not ask for a fixing of that number either.

From a technical view it is not useful to fix such a "minimum number" as it is hardly possible to fix it in general and very difficult to fix it individually for each reuse packaging system. Even there is no system for controlling these "numbers" in the member states nor there is any willing to sanction any remain under such a fixed figure. A screening and control for reuse systems would cause many years and cost a awful lot of money. Therefore it seems much more useful to lay down binding requirements for the organisation and technical outfit of reuse systems to optimise existing systems and keep there marked share.

Amendments to prEN 13429-2002 Some useful aspects are still included in EN 13429:2000 some more have not been accepted by the CEN TC 261 SC4 in the past.

The following requirements shall be included in the standard EN 13429 "Packaging - Reuse":

1. The marking of reuse packaging by a common "reuse-symbol". This was not established by the COM nor by the EU-council and EP. This symbol shall be compulsory to be fixed on each reuse packaging and may be fixed additionally to other reuse symbols still used in the market. 2. The quantity of one way items (minor components) directly connected to the reuse packaging as labels and closures shall be reduced to a maximum of 1% by weight for 10 glass packaging and 3% to paper, plastic, metal and wood packaging. These one way items shall be recyclable and separated for recycling in the reconditioning facilities. 3. The definition and requirements for hybrid system 3.9 and 6.4 shall be deleted.

Reason: It leads to confusion and misleading consumer information. The packaging staying in a private household or company loos its function as reuse packaging as it is used as any other jar, bucket, pot or sack. It becomes packaging waste after being discarded by the end-user. The number of rotations for a reuse item as part of a hybrid system can not be measured nor calculated, as long as the one way item (minor component) can be used solely without any further packaging item or with other items, different from the reuse component intended by the producer. In all cases the share of the minor one way component to the reuse packaging (principal component) will be much higher than 3%. 4. The number of trips/rotations of a certain system shall be measured/calculated following CEN-Report CR 14520 "Packaging - Reuse - Methods for assessing the performance of a reuse system" and printed on the packaging label as part of the reuse symbol.

Specific amendments to prEN 13429-2004: Concerning 3.7 - Definition of closed loop system keep old wording like in EN 13429:2000

Concerning 6.2 c) and d) - Criteria for a closed loop system keep old wording like in EN 13429:2000

Reason: The basis of the closed loop system is a contract between the companies using/running the system. A co-operation does not fulfil this requirement Concerning 5.2 e) - Verification procedure We welcome this basic requirement and we would like to see it as well in the requirements of standard EN 13430 and EN 13431. Concerning 6.3 c) - Criteria for a open loop system delete this paragraph.

Reason: The character of the open loop system is that there exists no contract between the companies using/running the system. There may be a public standard which can be used by the users. Concerning 6.3 e) - Criteria for a open loop system keep old wording like in EN 13429:2000

Reason: In open loop systems the owner of the packaging is the user. The exchange of the packaging to the next user/owner is part of a commercial deal which may not be part of an organised redistribution system. Concerning Annex A The headline is incorrect - Reuse is not part of the recycling scheme nor part of the recycling concept. The figure A1 shows the over all flows of all kind packaging in its life cycle from production to landfill.

Amendments concerning CEN-Report CR 14520 "Packaging - Reuse - Methods for assessing the performance of a reuse system"

11 Concerning 2.6 - Definitions "calculation period": "adequate duration" is no unambiguous expression - it will cause confusion and misleading consumer information. Concerning 2.11 - Definitions "closed loop system": see amendment 5 Concerning 3.2 - Methods of calculation Hybrid system: Delete without substitute - for reasons see amendment 3.

EN 13430 - Packaging - Recycling

In general: EN 13430 does not fulfil the basic requirements for technical standards, as it is not clear and not easy to use. It is a multiple repetition of common statements using three Annexes and furthermore two EN and CR to state the requested requirements which are the scope of the standard itself. This structure and complicated work out is useful to disguise than to clear. Delete Annex A

Incorporate the basic requirements of CR 13 688 into EN 13431 The requirements for packaging demanded for by EN 13430 have not to be met by all packaging which come to the EU market. Packaging which fail these requirements has to be incinerable following EN 13431. EN 13430 shall allow the producer/filler to prove conformity with directive 94/62/EC. The target of directive 94/62/EC is to optimise the recycling of packaging to raise the over all percentage of packaging recycling and reduce incineration and dumping of packaging waste. Therefore EN 13430 has to recognise all steps from packaging production, filling, use, collection, sorting and processing of used packaging. This is only possible if the existing state of the art in all steps of the process are considered. - requirements depending from the packed good have to be considered - requirements depending from the collection and sorting scheme have to be considered- - Requirements resulting from common process steps like collection / sorting have to be set in general and not by packaging material means. They should be clear, measurable and formulated without political interpretation. - the percentage by weight of packaging constituents shall not exceed 3% for glass and metal packaging and 5% for all other packaging fractions for collection have to be stated - a minimum size of the packaging component stated recyclable has to be fixed

Amendments in detail: Concerning 3. Terms and Definitions - The definition of "packaging constituents" has to be added under 3.7 as follows:

Packaging constituents - part of packaging, that can not be separated from the packaging user by hand or by using simple physical means. A typical packaging constituents is a label. Concerning 4.2 - Packaging assessment (replace actual chapter 4.2 by the following):

The supplier/filler shall be able to demonstrate that the following general requirements have been met by the packaging:

12 a the percentage by weight of packaging constituents shall not exceed 3% for glass and metal packaging and 5% for all other packaging, b the minimum size of the packaging component is 100ml volume or 300x200mm for flat components, c the packaging component correspond to one of the collection fractions in the market of distribution, d the residues from the packed good resolving in an empty packaging shall not exceed 3% for glass and metal packaging and 5% for all other packaging, e packaging made of organic materials (paper, Plastics, wood) have not been used for meat, cheese and fish containing goods. and that the procedures in normative Annexes B.....

Reasons: a + d packaging constituents have to be separated from the packaging material which causes energy demand, production waste and quality losses in the secondary raw material. 3 respectively 5 % are the typical percentages of residues from recycling processes described in EN 13437. b Packaging smaller than this are discarded in packaging material sorting plants. c If there is no separate collection system in the market of distribution there is no recycling. e Residues of fish, cheese and meat in used packaging made out of organic materials lead to moisture destroying the packaging material and causing harm to all people employed in the recycling process.

Concerning 4.3 - Declaration of percentage recyclable, Delete Table C2 and Annex D. Reason: The calculation of theoretically possible recycling quotas per packaging component are senseless as the whole packaging component will in normal and foreseeable circumstances not be recycled at all. For all packaging components who fulfil the general requirements the percentage of 94% (glass) and 90% (all other packaging) of the used emptied packaging leading to the secondary raw material stream is a target necessary to optimise the recycling.

EN 13431 - Packaging - energy recovery

In general: • EN 13431 on the one hand only focus on "factors under the control of the supplier", what in this case means, the packaging producer; and on the other EN 13431 mainly sets requirements for packaging waste (calorific value). All the conditions between these two stages of a packaging life cycle is ignored by the industry representatives of CEN TC 261. The intention of the EC/94/62 and the mandate M/317 is to optimise the energy recovery of packaging waste. Therefore the activities of the filler and the normal conditions of use have to be considered as well. The general statement within the introduction of EN 13431 second last sentence "It is concluded that packaging design and combination of materials do not create problems for energy recovery process."- therefor is absolute unacceptable.

13 • Optimisation of energy recovery does not mean that it is enough that the individual packaging burns to ash. The intention of the optimisation is to substitute other fossil fuels within the energy supply of industry. Refused Derived Fuel (RDF) needs a energy capacity of minimum 17 MJ/kg. Mostly all packaging waste being used for RDF is pre- treated to minimise the content of inert material and moisture (water). • If packaging waste, including residues of the once contained goods, or the packaging material itself includes more than 20% of inert material it causes huge costs, energy loss and residues which have to go to landfill after the separation process. The production of RDF in that case makes no sense and the material is going to incineration with the first intention to minimise the space needed on the final land fill.

Amendments in detail Concerning 5 - Requirements replace existing Chapter 5 by the following:

To claim energy recovery for a filled packaging set onto the market the following requirements shall be met by emptied used packaging in normal and foreseeable condition:

• q net shall be at least 12 MJ/kg • the share of inert material shall not exceed 25% • collection and treatment for energy recovery shall be in place on the market of distribution. • the packed good shall not contain hazardous materials and or more heavy metals as limited by Article 11 of the EC/62/94 for packaging material. Reasons: The four requirements do not limit the packaging market to a unacceptable extent. As Table B1 of Annex B of EN 13431 clearly shows, q net higher than 12 MJ only causes restrictions to very wet wood (more than 35% of water content) and to wrapping paper of more than 40% of inert filler. To burn very wet wood does not make any sense as any schoolboy knows. Paper consisting of more than 20% inert fillers is very uncommon for packaging, it meanly is used for high quality print papers like photo books. Metal cans shall not follow the energy recovery stream at all, as they are easy to separate and recycle - the same with paper, plastics and wood, recycling shall be the first choice where ever possible. Especially for paper and plastics "energy recovery" causes energy loss of more than 60% of the energy used for the production of these materials.

Where there are no collection and treatment plants to produce RDF it is a matter of unfair competition to claim packaging "energy recoverable". As long as EN 13429 requires the existence of a retake and reconditioning for reuse packaging in place it is rightly to do so for recovery streams.

Used packaging going to industrial energy plants for energy recovery must not rise the hazardous emissions of those plants, as in normal conditions they are not in charge of gas cleaning equipment as municipal incinerators do. To limit the heavy metals and other hazardous materials in packaging material itself does not make any sense as long the residues inside the packaging are exempted from this limitation and can cause unacceptable emissions.

14 Annex 2 to ECO/004/04E CIAA 1

ENV/129/01E

CIAA COMMENTS ON THE RDC/PIRA STUDY

This document constitutes the comments of the CIAA following the stakeholder meeting of 20 June organised by the Commission and the analysis of the RDC/PIRA draft report.

GENERAL COMMENTS

The CIAA welcomes the opportunity to comment on the RDC/Pira study as we believe that the on-going stakeholder dialogue can significantly refine and improve the RDC results.

We support the Commission decision to gather reliable and comparable data taking into account the diverse situations and performances of the different Member States.

The CBA methodology used, even in its early stages, is a new and valuable tool in comparison with classic LCAs.

However, due to the limitations to CBA, the budget and time restrictions and the limitations of data collection, the results of this Costs Benefits study should be cautiously interpreted.

SPECIFIC COMMENTS

RDC/Pira study is particularly interesting as it draws three main conclusions:

- The calculation of optimised recycling rates - The comparison between packaging systems for a specific material - The predominance of the industrial packaging in the global packaging stream.

- The calculation of optimised recycling rates

This optimum is to be found within a target range below and above which costs exceed benefits. The RDC study shows the importance of having maximum rates because beyond a certain limit, recycling is not economically nor environmentally efficient or preferable. The revision of the Packaging Directive should, therefore, take this fact into consideration and set both minimum and maximum targets for recycling.

- The comparison between packaging systems for a specific material

∗ The CBA methodology reveals that internal costs predominate over external costs. Annex 2 to ENV/077/04E- CIAA 2

∗ The monetisation of the impacts should be further explored to improve the robustness of the study.

∗ We would also like to stress that the Cost Benefit Analysis, like Life Cycle Assessments, is not a tool to compare packaging materials. Other elements such as techniques, health and marketing also need to be considered. For instance, for numerous beverages (milk, bier, wine), the comparison between glass and PET makes no sense. We, therefore, suggest modifying the presentation of the results to avoid confusion. The CBA should be limited to compare refillable packaging and one-way packaging for one specific material and not for different materials.

∗ The CIAA supports the new highlight promoted by RDC on the debate on one-way packaging versus refillables. Indeed, the report concludes that refillables for beverage packaging should not be promoted. It is particularly true for PET, and one-way PET is usually the best option. For glass, the reuse is no longer a good option when the distance it is transported increases.

- The predominance of industrial packaging in the global packaging stream

Setting a global optimum recycling target (household + industrial) is clearly the best solution as it allows certain flexibility required by the various national situations. However, the RDC/Pira study reveals that a high amount of industrial and commercial packaging is being put on the market.

Although the definition of household packaging and industrial and commercial packaging can be different in Member States, we encourage RDC to further reinforce the reliability of the data collected so far and to make a CBA on wood packaging. If such verification cannot be made, further sensitivity studies should be carried out to measure the impact of a significant variation of some fraction of industrial packaging on the global recycling target.

ADDITIONAL REMARKS

- No CBA on chemical recycling

The CIAA regrets that the different scenarios of the study consider only mechanical recycling. Other recycling processes to treat the packaging waste stream such as chemical recycling should be taken into account. A Cost Benefit Analysis of chemical recycling for PET, based on the TBI results that have been submitted to RDC by Eco-Emballages, should be included in the study.

- Glass collection

When the glass collection exceeds 50-60%, it implies a collection per colour that leads to further costs. These costs have not been incorporated in the

2 Annex 2 to ENV/077/04E- CIAA 3

calculation of recycling targets for glass although they could significantly influence the optimum recycling rate. These additional costs should, therefore, be included in the final RDC report.

- Population density

A selective collection of packaging on 100% of the European territory is impossible. It should be reasonable to set a population density limit below which selective collection of packaging is neither economically nor environmentally justified. The CIAA recommends to identify the zones where the population density is below 50 habitants/km2. Besides, sensitivity studies should be carried out to determine the population density for which costs of the selective collection exceed benefits.

- Plastic packaging

∗ Fluctuations of the market prices of plastic

The study shows that the results of the CBA for packaging recycling largely depend on the market price of materials. The RDC results are based on the current and high sales prices for the recycled materials. However, the possible variations of the market price of some materials such as plastics are not taken into consideration.

The CIAA favours an approach that would integrate the possible variations of PET market price to complete the RDC report and suggests that a sensitivity analysis on PET packaging based on average historical prices to be made.

∗ The RDC study should consider that some fraction of household packaging waste is not collectable. Indeed, a fraction of PET or HDPE bottles could be considered non-recyclable for technical reasons (spoiled, too small size, etc) or for health and safety reasons (they have contained hazardous substances).

We propose that the final RDC report takes into account the ratio of household packaging that can not be collected and recycled and to which optimised targets would not apply. Here, a collection rate of 0% should be applied.

- Packaging mix

RDC uses the actual packaging mix for each Member State and does not take into consideration future significant modifications that could happen between now and 2006. For instance, the beer market could use more PET than glass in the future.

The CIAA, therefore, favours RDC carrying out a sensitivity analysis on the variations in packaging mix.

3 Stakeholder Comment On Packaging Study 28.5.2004

General comments: 1. The study of such large-scale impacts cannot be based on an excerption of current information sources even from only some of EU25 countries. 2. Considering the running discussions on LCA role in waste management (see Integrated Waste Management and Life Cycle Assessment, workshop and conference, Prague, Czech Republic, April 13-16th, 2004, Directorate General Joint Research Centre, European Commission) is necessary to perform as followings:

a) to create an European discussion forum (public administration, packaging industry, NGOs, waste management companies) b) to discuss and approve the methodology including an applied LCA model c) to discuss and approve data sources (e.g. in the Czech Republic the detailed LCA study on municipal waste management carried out for the Ministry of the Environment) d) to discuss and approve the method for interpretation of results (key point to create relevant conclusions) e) to identify environmental situation in the particular member EU25 states as the only background for the assessment of environmental impacts related to packaging and packaging waste management (e.g. in the Czech Republic the only one black coal mine produces 4 times more greenhouse gas emissions than the whole system of 4 million tonnes of municipal waste management!!!)

Methodological comments: 1. key assumptions are too simplified for the description of the real situation 2. the way of 3 scenarios definition is not obvious 3. the way of PEI selection is not obvious

Comments on the data: Aiming at new EU members is missing (chapter 2.2.2.5 shows Slovak Univerzity of Technology in Bratislava as a data source for the Czech Republic?!)

Author: Ing. Bohumil Černík Independent expert Rezlerova 310, 10900 Praha 10 Česká Republika E-mail: [email protected]

Study on the implementation of the Packaging Directive and options to strengthen prevention and re-use / Comments on the Interim Report

Beverage Can Makers Europe (BCME) represents Rexam ( UK), Ball Packaging Europe ( D) and Crown Europe (F) which have been highly affected by discriminatory national policies under Art. 5 of the Packaging Directive ( Danish can ban, German refill quota & deposit sanction,…). Contrary to competing materials plastics and glass, steel and aluminium beverage cans are available only as single-use containers. They meet high recycling objectives, but cannot live up to any re-use targets.

The Interim Report hardly develops the Packaging Re-use part, so it proves impossible to comment at this stage on any evaluations or recommendations. Another stakeholder meeting on re-use is scheduled for the beginning of July. We kindly request to be invited to this second meeting as directly and individually affected parties with considerable (negative) experience of Member State measures.

The procedure obliging Member States to notify to the Commission and other Member States any drafts implementing the Packaging Directive, has been helpful primarily in relation to national re-use encouragement measures. Both the Commission and many Member States have strongly objected to various national measures under Art. 5 which would cause barriers to trade or distortions of competition. DG Entreprise ( responsible for the notification procedure) has a wealth of Commission and Member State detailed opinions or comments stressing the risks of national measures under Art. 5. We repeat our recommendation that DG Entreprise’s database should be accessible to the consultants for their assessment of « Implementation of the Re-use Option in Member States » ( point 3.2. Interim Report).

In addition to this pre-infringement process, several formal infringement procedures have been initiated by the Commission which should be duly taken into account such as the Danish can ban ( cf. conclusions of the EU Court Advocate General in Case C-246/99) and the German cases ( cf. conclusions of the Advocate General in Cases C-463/01 and C-309/02). The latter confirm that contrary to some belief, re-use does not fall under prevention as first priority and consequently is not per se preferable to other recovery/ recycling measures. The Advocate General also warns against deposits as a market distortion instrument. Consequently the hypothesis in the interim report that « deposits on one-way packaging could also have an impact on reuse » should not be understood as a positive way towards « stronger harmonisation ». Other national measures (i.e. Netherlands) are subject to infringement procedures. All this experience should be properly assessed as it shows that Art. 5 tends being used as a protectionist instrument contrary to the objectives of the Directive.

The appropriateness of direct, proportionate incentives for re-use systems ( not only for drinks packaging !) instead of punitive market barriers for one-way packaging ( quotas, deposits, ecotaxes,..) should be assessed.

We thank you for your attention and look forward contributing further to the study.

Regards

Bob SCHMITZ , Permanent Delegate, BCME ( Tel. 00.32.2.7612371) – 3 June 2004 Dear Mr Parker, I send you my first comments. page 2: OK for the data, but I think the data are calculated in the different way. For example, in Italy the recovery/recycling data are calculated on the national capacity, excluding export (In Germany is it the same?); page 3: There is a mistake: two time Spain; page 55: First period "The Italian Decree" (not "ordinance"). The last period to add "Producers" before "Company" and to add in conclusion "or deposit scheme"; page 61 e ss: I think is it possible to add further informations about the prevention in Italy (see CONAI Plan); page 75: Italy has implemented the essential requirements (Annex F of the Decree 22/97). From 1° january Italy banned the packaging no according with the essential requirements (art. 43, comma 3 Decree 22/97). The five standards EN are implemented from UNI (italian competent body ); we have specific penalty (art. 54, comma 3 Decree 22/97); page 94: Italy banned the packaging no according three steps for heavy metal: we have specific penalty (art. 54, comma 2 Decree 22/97); pag 101: also in Italy the Italian Packaging Institute organized market surveys to assess the heavy metal content packaging.

Best regards

Massimo Medugno Deputy Director ASSOCARTA Viale Pasteur 10 00144 ROMA tel 0039 6 5919131 fax0039 6 5910876 www.assocarta.it [email protected]

ASSOCIATION OF PLASTICS MANUFACTURERS IN EUROPE AISBL T ECHNICAL & E NVIRONMENTAL C ENTRE

APME COMMENTS ON ECOLAS – PIRA INTERIM REPORT dated 23/04/2004

A. Methodological comments – comments relating specifically to the methodology applied

Scenarios The scenario approach is a usual and useful one. But the usefulness of the Zero Recycling scenario seems questionable. The Baseline Policy scenario may be interesting as a reference, provided that all the assumptions are presented in full transparency. There is indeed a good chance that many of these assumptions may be controversial.

Task 1. Impacts of the Directive from environmental, economic and social perspective This triple perspective approach is very important from a Sustainable Development standpoint. The three dimensions will have to be addressed in a balanced way. The social impact analysis, based on all the criteria given on p.35, should provide interesting insights. p. 36 - Section 1.5 – “Compare the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive…” Setting the scene as proposed (impacts of the Directive into context) is indeed a welcomed approach. It is important for all citizens to know how efficiently their money is spent and how packaging impacts rank within all environmental impacts of the EU economy. A clear explanation of the fact that packaging is not a stand-alone product, and that its impact has to be considered in the perspective of the total product content life cycle is crucial for understanding the role of packaging.

B. Comments on the data – more specifically: quality of the data; relevance of the data; availability of alternative data p.5 “Data relating to landfill and incineration for all scenarios was sourced from “Integrated Solid Waste Management: A life cycle inventory” Data for incineration are taken from 1995. Incinerators have been significantly changed and improved since then, so these data do not give a realistic picture. Improved data should be used, which better represent the situation for the years the scenarios are calculated for. p.6 "• Plastic recycling has been considered as PET bottle recycling only (i.e. processing and environmental credit); in other words all types of plastic packaging have in effect been assumed to be PET bottles” PET bottles are absolutely not representative of the total (industrial, commercial, household) plastics packaging waste (PPW) mix. On the contrary: • they are the best case of a clean recyclable fraction from the household waste, particularly when sorted at source • the recycling losses are minimal (15-20%) compared to other plastics fractions • substitution ratio recyclate/virgin is near to 1/1, which means that 1part of recyclate can, from a mechanical properties standpoint, replace nearly 1 part of virgin material, nevertheless with limitations depending on the considered application • they have (so far) no problem of market outlet. A VENUE E. V AN N IEUWENHUYSE 4/3 B - 1160 B RUSSELS TELEPHONE (32-2) 675 32 97 FAX (32-2) 675 39 35 VAT BE 416 155 338 WWW. APME. ORG

Considering that all PPW can be recycled with the same benefit leads to excessively optimistic results. In real life, the global energy savings due to PPW recycling, as illustrated on Fig. 7 (p. 9), are much lower. This should be taken into account, otherwise misleading conclusions might be drawn. p.6 “• Plastic incineration has been considered as Plastic incineration of rigid plastics packaging, with an energy credit" OK. The recovery efficiency of the feedstock energy is of course an important parameter and should be mentioned. The TNO Eco-efficiency study for APME took, as an EU average, a rate of 30% energy recovery efficiency. p.17 “The turnover of the compliance schemes may be an indication of the turnover of the whole packaging recovery sector. In table 7 the figures available in Argus 2001 are presented.” This may be an interesting consideration, but the various compliance schemes cover different things (all types of packaging or only specific streams, total costs or partial costs, communication, prevention campaigns …). Beside that, households have additional cost, e.g. for transportation and cleaning of packaging for recycling. This should not be neglected. (Estimation for Germany: 2.500.000.000 € per year) Furthermore, a lot of industrial packaging waste is traded directly by the waste owners (B2B deals – direct export e.g. by retailers), waste traders or specialised bodies, not only for the fraction that can be recycled profitably and would have been recycled without the Directive, but also for the "non-profitable" fraction. And the corresponding volume cannot be easily identified in export statistics. If no better indication is available, this weakness should at least be mentioned. p.17 “The turnover of the packaging industry can be analysed using BELFIRST/AMADEUS databases.” p.18 “Alternatively an analysis of the turnover of the packaging industry can possibly be carried out using the European harmonised PRODCOM statistics.” How was the differentiation made between the effects of the PPWD and of other factors (increased functionality of packaging, change in consumption patterns? This deserves an explanatory comment. p.18 “The turnover of the waste management and recycling industries can be analysed using BELFIRST/AMADEUS databases.” How is the impact on said turnover of export for recycling treated? As an example, many plastics recyclers have seen their turnover decreasing despite the increase in recycling rates, due to the dramatic increase of exports. Can packaging waste recycling be extracted from these general databases? An explanatory comment would be welcome. p.31 “Information duty: Nil, this is a task for the authorities.” Practical experience shows, that information duty costs businesses quite a lot of money, as the organizations firstly need to collect the data the authorities are using for their reporting. p.35 “WRc2000 evaluates annualised employment related to the Directive for the EU-15 at close to 1000.” The quality of jobs has to be taken into account, too. Numerous of the jobs created are paid for by subsidies and do not contribute to overall added-value.

PEI – Packaging Environmental Indicator p.39 “In order for a packaging environment indicator (PEI) to operate successfully a number of prerequisites must be met. These can be summarised as follows: 1. The PEI must effectively meet its objective of enabling the environmental performance of packaging to be measured with a useful degree of accuracy; 2. The PEI must enable comparisons to be made between different packaging options or different packaging systems performing the same function; 3. The PEI methodology must be feasible and credible in use.”

Comments on the PEI section:

There is already a Prevention tool in place. Its use should be enforced by authorities. As reminded in 2.3.1.1, “The two fundamental elements of the new approach are the essential requirements and the procedures for assessing conformity" The European Parliament urged the European Commission to extend to all MS the enforcement of these ER. One of these addresses the Prevention obligation. And there is a tool in place that has legal binding power for assessing the conformity of packaging to the Directive (CEN standard EN 13428 Prevention). This should be reminded in the background section 2.1.1.

The objective of a PEI should neither enter into conflict with the environmental objective of the Directive, nor shift the environmental burden elsewhere. As mentioned on p.41, reminding the objective given by Dorette Corbey, "environmental impact should be reduced", while the Directive aims at "a high level of environmental protection". This means, e.g., that packaging cannot be isolated from its content, nor from the whole logistics chain, and more generally from the whole life cycle of the product. The Packforsk report (see literature) has clearly shown, as did other studies too, that decreasing packaging under a certain limit leads to product losses the impact of which (in terms of energy rucksack and corresponding greenhouse gases) is much more important than e.g. a 5% excess of packaging. This means that a better PEI (less solid waste, less GHG from packaging) would in such case increase the environmental impact, even if not apparent in the assessment of packaging itself.

Packaging is not a stand-alone product; it has to be assessed with its content over its whole LC. Assuming that a PEI would nevertheless be developed, a 4th prerequisite should be added to the list given in the report (p.39): 4. PEI (Packaging Environmental Impact Indicator, in a broader sense) should include the environmental impact on the whole system (packaging, packed goods, logistic chain incl. production) and take into account the need to meet changing social needs (or changing consumption patterns).

Simplifying the complexity of environmental assessment will distort the facts and the market. p.39: “The objective of developing a PEI is "to render packaging waste prevention simpler and more effective” The concept to use a simplified LCA-tool such as a PEI as guidance for decision making is highly questionable. How can the complexity of environmental impacts potentially generated by systems running under widely differing local conditions be reflected in the single score of a simple tool, used for political decision making, without distorting the functioning of the internal market? The report should provide an answer to this question.

Last but not least, a PEI score would simply give a snapshot view, without any regard for the results generated by continuous improvement. p.41 "LCA has revealed that competing packaging systems are often rather similar in terms of environmental impact. More often than not, LCAs that have proper sensitivity analyses or show uncertainty limits have concluded that any differences shown between competing packs are insignificant. The lack of major environmental differences between packaging systems often reflects the physical reality of the situation under study." The Life Cycle approach is deemed to be at the basis of the PEI. Doesn't this statement of the report provide an immediate answer about the usefulness of a PEI? LCAs are a tool for systems improvement, for better information and a good basis for a more objective dialogue. They still have too many weaknesses for ranking products or for political decision making. A simplified tool based on LCA would still be much weaker, even if politically convenient. p.42 2.1.3.2 “Important issues need to be considered when establishing an indicator that considers the whole life cycle of a product (in this case packaging) and that is intended for comparison. For this purpose the general concept of life cycle assessment is considered:” Packaging cannot be considered as a stand-alone product. It is not only a facilitator of the product, as mentioned in this report (section 2.1.5.1), but also a tool for the prevention of environmental impact of products (Packforsk). This has been acknowledged in various documents by the European Commission, by Dorette Corbey and by many others.

p.42 - System boundaries and functional unit: The system has to encompass the packaging, its content, the logistic chain incl. production, from cradle to grave. The functional unit has to provide the same useful service to the same type of users (same function, as properly reminded in the report). p.42 2.1.3.3 “Discussion of the specific requirements of a system operating an indicator to be used for comparisons. […] These requirements are very similar to the ones seen for Type III environmental declarations.” But the objectives are not the same: ƒ "to render packaging waste prevention simpler and more effective” in the case of PEI. And the result will be used e.g. by authorities for making comparisons and political decisions. ƒ to communicate in a transparent way environmental information (with all its complexity and all the unavoidable trade-offs at the point of decision making) and share it with the downstream chain in the case of EPDs, essentially to the business chain (B2B communication).

Two additional items will be crucial in the case of PEI: ƒ the range of uncertainty associated to the single score (due e.g. to the assumptions behind the LCA –e.g. allocation rules-, the uncertainty or lack of data, the range of possible end of life treatment options, the differing local or national situations –e.g. electricity grid- , etc.) and ƒ the value of the subjective weighting factors used. p.45 Model 1, excluding the use and EoL phases, assesses only the energy content of packaging. Such a model will lead to biased results. It can even lead to contradictory results when compared with a comprehensive eco-balance (example available). Energy savings due to recycling and to energy recovery can have a significant impact on the results. p.45, table 9 Perhaps a copy of the screen as it appears from the model, but in the report it gives the impression that plastics (including all the ones that are useless in the example given – "zero" boxes) are the problematic packaging material. We would suggest to provide examples referring to different materials used in the packaging sector. p.48, table 12 The example provided, even if only indicative, should at least reflect the average EU situation rather than what looks like the situation in the UK.

C. General comments – general viewpoints on the aspects of the Directive addressed in the study pp.39-120 - Prevention The report covers extensively this aspect, including the details of prevention plans in a few countries. An overview giving some key factors of the prevention approach might be helpful. Amongst these key factors, one can mention: ƒ proper enforcement of the use of the CEN standard on Prevention ƒ entire Life Cycle approach, comprising packaging and its content within its distribution, use and end-of-life phases ƒ continuous improvement of systems, due e.g. to technology improvements and more generally to innovation, which is a dynamic approach - boosted by competition -, not a pass or fail approach.

Constraints such as the necessity to meet changing consumption patterns and social needs deserve also a mention in such an overview. p.91 “MANDATE – "For all of the six mandated standards, the mandate requirements were not fulfilled." EEB is only one of the many stakeholders who were involved in the process. To give a fair view on the standards and to prevent any misunderstanding, it should be mentioned that EEB opinion was not shared by the legal services of the Commission for EN 13428 / Prevention at source (quantitative

aspects) and EN 13432 / Compostable packaging. The EC published them as harmonised EU standards, which means that they were accepted as corresponding to the Mandate. p.94 Heavy metals and other hazardous substances – 2.4.1.1 Introduction The aim of this chapter is to assess the various to reduce the environmental impacts of packaging as regards the presence of noxious and other hazardous substances and materials in packaging.

This first sentence refers to all the dangerous substances mentioned in 67/548/EEC and its amendments, while the second indent refers to the "dangerous substances formulated in the essential requirements". The PPWD has twin objectives: environmental improvement and functioning of the internal market. It applies without prejudice to the provisions of other existing Directives, e.g. health- or food-contact- related Directives. The dangerous substances covered by the mandate M200 rev.3 to CEN, related to the essential requirements of the PPW Directive, are understood as being substances dangerous for the environment (refer to the wording of PPWD - Annex II.1. 3d indent). The other ones (dangerous for human health) are covered by other Directives and were not considered for the development of these mandated CEN standards. Each time the report refers to the dangerous substances targeted by the PPWD, it should mention “the dangerous substances as formulated in the essential requirements” and not "dangerous substances" in general. p.95 Box "Standards under development" These are not standards, but technical reports. They should be referred to as CEN TR 13695 – Part 1 and CEN TR 13695 – Part 2, not as prEN. It would be useful to add under the textbox "these reports refer to the dangerous substances as formulated in the essential requirements of the PPWD". This would clarify that they do not have the ambition (nor was it the ambition of the Mandate) to encompass all types of dangerous substances of 67/548/EEC.

Bibliography

In relation with the section 1.5, the following report might be of interest for the readers.

New insights into European waste management choices - Assessing the eco-efficiency of plastics packaging waste recovery. TNO report for APME – 1999 http://www.apme.org/dashboard/business_layer/template.asp?url=http://www.apme.org/media/public_ documents/20010802_100011/literatuur_general_02.htm&title=New+insights+into+European+waste+ management+choices

Ecolas/Pira Interim Report

Comments of the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE)

We would like to present our views on three areas as presented in the consultant’s interim report to the Commission (Ref. 03/07884/AL) on 23 April 2004.

Impact assessment of the PPWD

Since reduction of negative environmental impacts is one of the key objectives of the PPWD, in our view, it is important to focus on environmental impact categories instead of mixing impact with resources consumption. The interim report unfortunately is still unspecific about system boundaries and evaluation methods – both areas are of high importance regarding the quality of the results. ACE would strongly support a life-cycle approach perspective in analyzing the environmental impacts of the PPWD.

Regarding the economic assessment we think that the data sources used cannot deliver the desired information and results for further policy developments. In 2002, ACE performed an in-house review including nine of the studies quoted as data source in the interim report with the objective to better understand costs and benefits of paper packaging and beverage carton recycling. We found that the data published unfortunately did not allow us to draw any valuable conclusions. All nine studies reviewed showed major differences and variations in objectives, scope of work, system boundaries, assessment methods applied and assumptions made. We concluded that the data could not serve to quantify neither external nor internal costs of packaging waste recycling. Even the studies funded by the EU Commission used very different methodological approaches.

A robust cost benefit analysis on packaging waste collection, sorting and recycling needs to reflect the great variety of systems in place in different Member States: differentiate between shared and full cost systems, inclusion/exclusion of commercial packaging waste, fiscal incentives, differences in geography and population density, development and quality of waste

1 of 3 management infrastructure, etc. These data would have to be analysed for several EU Member States. From what we see at present, the consultant has not done this so far nor is it likely to be so.

However, the studies given as reference in the interim report may allow for general qualitative conclusions. In our review we could derive key factors influencing cost-effectiveness of recovery and recycling of packaging waste including for example: population density, infrastructure & autoimmunization, municipal structure (France with 35.000 municipalities versus 400 in the UK, two countries with about the same population), possibility for the recycling scheme to include commercial, industrial and post consumer waste, limits to economy of scale (higher recycling levels may decrease cost per tonne and may require to source problematic material qualities), developments on the secondary raw material markets. Thus, the specific PPWD implantation in MS and specific local conditions represent the key drivers for costs and benefits of packaging waste recycling.

The social assessment has not been taken into consideration at all.

Packaging Environmental Indicator (PEI)

The consultants suggest packaging environmental experts to test the feasibility of 3 different models for a PEI as tool to generate packaging environmental information. We expect little useful outcomes from such an exercise since the intended use of such PEI is not known. From a methodological point of view, a the usefulness of a tool can only be tested if its intend use is known. This is not the case here.

If a PEI is intended for use by packer/fillers/producers to communicate environmental information along the value chain “business to business”, than we would consider the use of EPDs as a more appropriate approach. The EPD method is more robust and is currently circumscribed by an ISO Technical Report, which may become a full standard in the coming months.

If a PEI is intended to communicate environmental information with consumers, than we believe this would lead to the creation of a de facto “eco-label”. From our understanding the EU Eco-label Board (EUEB) is currently not intending to develop such a label for packaging due to the complexity of the area. The EUEB sees the fundamental issue with eco-labels for packaging is that they could not take the product into account. Therefore they would generate misleading information to consumers.

If a PEI is intended to generate environmental information for governments and regulators such a hybrid input/output measurement on rather randomly selected environmental impact or resource consumption categories could not deliver a

2 of 3 sufficiently complete picture of the environmental impacts over a packaging system life-cycle. A PEI could not serve the need to generate a holistic understanding of. In this case a life cycle based approach would provide a more complete and reliable scientific background.

PEI may be useful as an initial “screening tool” in an early stage of product development for companies, particularly for SMEs, provided it then led onto more detailed investigations during the course of a specific product development process to analyze more specifically the actual environmental aspects.

From the above, it is clear that the consultants need to clarify the intended audience and function of the tool if it is to be evaluated critically. ACE will however look into the model PEI provided and share its findings with the Commission and its consultants in due time.

Prevention of packaging waste and Conformity Assessment

ACE supports the evaluation of options for conformity assessment as set out by the consultants. It is important though, to follow a pragmatic approach regarding the cost issue involved – particularly where 3rd party certification may be proposed – and its impact on vast bulk of the packaging industry, which consists of small and medium sized companies.

ACE member companies developed a conformity assessment model along our value chain. The documentation is close to completion and will be provided to the Commission and its consultants in the coming days.

On a point of clarification regarding the CE mark. This is clearly intended for the product – not the packaging and the inference that packaging having a CE mark means it is in conformity with EU harmonized standards would be most confusing for consumers who are buying a product – not a package. The references to the CE marking should therefore be appropriately qualified.

Brussels, 3rd of June 2004

Erika Mink

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SIB Europe Verband des deutschen Getränke- Einzelhandels

S UBMISSION P APER FROM THE G ERMAN R EFILL A LLIANCE

On the Interim Report of Study on the Implementation of Directive 94/62/EC on Packaging and Packaging Waste and Options to strengthen Prevention and Re-use of Packaging

The German Refill Alliance represents 2,700 enterprises of beverage wholesalers, 800 mid size breweries, 11,000 beverage retail outlets as well as 99 environmental and consumer organizations in Germany.

The German Refill Alliance welcomes the initiative taken by the European Commission to con- duct a study on the consequences of the implementation of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive 94/62/EC, as well as on the particular issues of prevention and re-use of packaging. The German Refill Alliance would like to underline in general the importance of this work, which will form part of the report on Directive 94/62/EC and form the basis for a coherent assessment and review of packaging legislation in Europe.

The German Refill Alliance would like to express concerns regarding the assessment and conclu- sions drawn in the interim report of the two consultancies, ECOLAS N.V. and PIRA Interna- tional Ltd. Due to the fact that at the time of this interim report the chapters on reuse have not been addressed, we find the interim conclusions unbalanced and incomplete. Therefore, we would kindly ask you to accept our first comments and added information on re-use as a constructive input to the study. We would fully support the organisation of a second expert workshop and a second stakeholders’ consultation on the report, when the reuse chapters are drafted.

The German Refill Alliance welcomes comments or questions to this submission from the two consultancies, the European Commission or any other stakeholders and looks forward to the completed interim study.

1 SIB Europe Verband des deutschen Getränke- Einzelhandels

I- Methodological comments

1- Given the importance of options to strengthen prevention and reuse of packaging within the study, the absence of any information on re-use in the interim report leads us to question its results and conclusions at this stage.

2- The interim report does not fully evaluate the environmental impacts of the Packaging Waste Directive. We strongly suggest to concentrate on the aspects called for in the call for tender and by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers.

II- Comments on data

The German Refill Alliance understands from the terms of reference of the study that the consul- tancies should base their analysis on existing data. It seems that data showing the positive envi- ronmental and economic (including employment) aspects of reuse (and deposit) have not been taken into consideration yet. We would urge the consultancies to consider this information.

We prepared a collection on relevant studies on these items and will gladly send them to the con- sultancies.

III- General Comments

As an organisation dedicated to reuse and reuse principles, the German Refill Alliance finds it dif- ficult to comment on the interim report’s findings at this stage. Under these circumstances, we are regrettably constrained to providing facts of a very general nature. This could be comple- mented by and discussed further at the occasion of a second expert workshop and a second stakeholders’ consultation.

Contribution on Task 1- Evaluation of the implementation of the Packaging Directive 94/62/EC

Comments on the impact of the Directive as regards re-use (operating costs, administrative bur- den etc…) will be made under the contribution on task 3 dedicated to re-use.

Contribution on Task 2- Packaging Prevention, especially on producer’s responsibility schemes such as deposit

The German Refill Alliance notes that the analysis of producer responsibility schemes is for the time being limited to the evaluation of the Green Dot systems in place in different EU Member States.

2 SIB Europe Verband des deutschen Getränke- Einzelhandels

In the context of the discussion on prevention of packaging waste, the German Refill Alliance would like to raise and contribute to a discussion of deposit and return systems for beverage pack- aging.

- Definition of deposit:

A deposit can be defined as “a sum of money given as security for an item acquired for temporary use.”

When applied to beverage packaging, a ‘deposit system’ implies an arrangement where consumers pay a small transparent amount of money (the deposit) on top of the ordinary selling price for a beverage product, which will be redeemed when returning the empty packaging.

- Implementation of this option in the Member States:

Deposit systems for beverage packaging are implemented for refillable beverage containers in most EU countries. In the case of non-refillable beverage containers, deposit schemes exist in Den- mark, Estonia (as of January 2005), Finland, Germany, Sweden, as well as Norway and Iceland.

In addition, wide ranges of other markets also have refillable deposit systems or variants based on similar principles of operation, primarily for the collection and reuse of refillable containers.

Different parameters must be taken into account when assessing how deposit systems have been implemented in the EU/EEA: their mandatory/voluntary nature, the level of penalties, the level of deposit value (which as a positive correlation with collection rate), different coverage (per type of drinks or of packaging) etc

In some markets, like Norway, the beverage industry receives packaging tax allowances inversely proportional to the achieved collection rate (higher recovery rate give lower taxes - this concept is also known as Pigovian tax – the internalising of external costs).

This contributes to making deposit systems highly effective, as the industry itself is motivated to facilitate recycling. The Norwegian approved collection rates for 2003 (refillable bottles 95%, non-refillable cans 93%, one-way PET bottles 80% (recently introduced)) are achieved even though the legal requirement from the Ministry of the Environment is only 25%.

A detailed description on how deposit systems for beverage packaging have been implemented in the EU/EEA could be provided by the German Refill Alliance to the consultancies upon request.

- Evaluation of the environmental effects of deposit schemes:

3 SIB Europe Verband des deutschen Getränke- Einzelhandels

Having gathered data and expertise through a large network of waste management companies and environmental NGOs, the German Refill Alliance would like to underline the main advantages of deposit systems.

Due to the generation of clean material streams right at the source, the recycling rate for the dif- ferent materials is always equal to their collection rate.

For the well-established one-way deposit markets in Europe the collection rates are indicated in the graph below. For the relatively young schemes in Denmark and Germany currently no data are available.

Collection rate in one way deposit systems (%) 95 100 90 84

75

50

25

0 Sweden Norway Finland

Looking e.g. at the German green dot system, the CEO Repnik stated during the official presen- tation of 2003 figures, that the average margin of errors is 40%. That means, that 40% of the material collected through the yellow bag or bin system does not carry the green dot symbol. His press speaker even went further and mentioned wrong insertions of 50% to 70% in the cities. The result of above-mentioned situation is high contamination, which leads to much lower recycling rates1.

First of all, the German Refill Alliance would like to underline that collection rates of packaging are higher in a deposit system (ranging from 84% to 95% - see previous chart than the ones ob- tained by curbside or bring systems and since used beverage containers are kept in a closed loop, a full utilization of the collected material is achieved. Material collected through curbside and igloo systems cannot be guaranteed as pure waste streams as no active sorting is taking place at the point of collection. Material collected through deposit systems can be guaranteed high quality, and hence readily suitable for entering the material recycling process at a much later stage than curb- side or bring systems material, which requires costly secondary sorting and extra cleaning. Elimi- nation of steps in the recycling process saves energy, time and cost.

1 See Kölnische Rundschau, 3.05.2004 or http://www.tagesschau.de/aktuell/meldungen/0%2C1185%2COID3244482_REF4%2C00.html

4 SIB Europe Verband des deutschen Getränke- Einzelhandels

As a consequence, deposit systems for packaging can be very effective in litter reduction. Data shows that in markets where a deposit system for one-way containers exist, beverage container lit- tering is much reduced. This is due to the fact that someone will inevitably find the deposit in- centive for returning the container attractive even if the original owner of the container chose to throw it away in nature or in urban locations.

Every container collected in a deposit system is thus one container less, potentially being littered. We prepared some studies by the Witzenhausen Institute in Germany about Littering of beverage containers in the Netherlands and Germany. All these documents could be provided to the con- sultancies and Commission upon request. According to various and nation-wide press reports in Germany2, littering has practically stopped since the implementation of the deposit scheme. In more than 40 different articles, describing the spring-cleaning activities in the towns, it is stated that beverage containers (covered under the deposit) are no longer part of the littering problem. The share of beverage packaging on overall littering before the introduction of the deposit was above 20%.

Although not within the scope of the study, a good example comes from Switzerland. In February 2004 the Swiss MoE (BUWAL) released the first interim result of a recently initiated study which concludes that “take away and beverage packaging represent the majority of littering”, even though Switzerland claims to have one of the best voluntary collection schemes.

Finally, the high quality and purity of material sorted in a deposit system ensures the highest prices when the material is sold to the commodities market. PET separately collected in a deposit system can be used much easier in high recycling applications, like bottle-to-bottle recycling. The use of recycled instead of virgin material in many applications, helps to protect limited natural resources. The recycling industry requires stable supplies of high-quality and homogenous mate- rial in order to develop markets for secondary (recycled) material.

Contribution to Task 3- Packaging Re-use

The German Refill Alliance notes with surprise that the chapter on re-use has started to be devel- oped yet. Given our experience in the field of re-use of beverage packaging in EU 25 and Norway from both a commercial and environmental point of view, we would very much like to supply the consultancies with information of the main consumption trends in the EU, as well as costs-benefit analyses of reusable packaging.

- Implementation of re-use in the Member States:

The current trend observed in all EU is a decrease in the market share of refillables. Countries were no specific measures were put in place to protect reusable beverage packaging are now coun- tries where one-way containers dominate the market.

2 See for instance, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 5.04.04, Kölnische Rundschau, 23.03.04, Hamburger Abendblatt, 19.03.04.

5 SIB Europe Verband des deutschen Getränke- Einzelhandels

The following data illustrate this trend:

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Portugal* Soft drinks refillable - 66,0% 59,0% 52,0% 46,6% 38,5% 32,0% 36,4% 34,2% 30,9% - - one-way - 34,0% 41,0% 48,0% 53,4% 61,5% 68,0% 63,6% 65,8% 69,1% - - Mineral water refillable - - - - - 28,2% 25,4% 25,5% 23,3% 23,0% 15,8% 14,9% one-way - - - - - 71,8% 74,6% 74,5% 76,7% 77,0% 84,2% 85,1%

Switzerland** Mineral water refillable 79,4% 79,0% 76,7% 54,7% 43,9% 38,8% 34,0% 30,5% 27,2% - - - one-way 20,6% 21,0% 23,3% 45,3% 56,1% 61,2% 66,0% 69,5% 72,8% - - - Soft drinks refillable 82,8% 75,5% 76,0% 75,1% 74,3% 73,3% 72,3% 68,2% 67,8% - - - one-way 17,2% 24,5% 24,0% 24,9% 25,7% 26,7% 27,7% 31,8% 32,2% - - - Beer refillable 76,0% 75,5% 76,0% 75,1% 74,3% 73,3% 72,3% 68,2% 67,8% - - - one-way 24,0% 24,5% 24,0% 24,9% 25,7% 26,7% 27,7% 31,8% 32,2% - - -

Belgium*** All beverages refillable - - 70,0% ------20,0% - - one-way - - 30,0% ------80,0% - -

Germany**** All beverages refillable 71,7% 73,5% 73,6% 72,9% 72,3% 72,2% 71,3% 70,1% 68,7% 65,5% - - one-way 28,3% 26,5% 26,5% 27,1% 27,7% 27,8% 28,7% 29,9% 31,3% 34,5% - -

Austria***** All beverages refillable - - - 76,3% - - 68,8% - - 59,2% 56,4% 53,4% one-way - - - 23,7% - - 31,2% - - 40,8% 43,6% 46,6%

* Source: Quercus ** Source: Swiss EPA BUWAL *** Source: Estimate in accordance with industry and retail surveys **** Source: German MoE ***** Source: ARA Reports

The historical development of refillable vs. non-refillable packaging e.g. in Austria underline above statements. The overall refill share was at 76,3 % in 1994 (HORECA consumption is in- cluded, this is e.g. not the case in Germany). Then the Green Dot system ARA started. In 2002 refillables were down to 53,4 %. The voluntary agreement of retail and industry to sell more than 50 % in refillables has now in 2003 been missed for the first time. It shows that stable regulatory frame conditions are needed. The Austrian refill system is now at risk completely. Consequently, the Austrian legislator considers the introduction of additional legislation in order to support re- fillables. A similar development was occurring in Germany up to the implementation of a deposit system January 2003 (see collection on studies).

6 SIB Europe Verband des deutschen Getränke- Einzelhandels

Entwicklung Getränkeverpackungen Österreich 1994 - 2002 Gesamt

100% 90% 80%

70% 1994 60% 1997 50% 2000 40% 2001 30% 2002 20% 10% 0% Mineralwasser Limonaden Bier Fruchtsaft Gesamt

Entwicklung Getränkeverpackungen Österreich 1994 - 2002 (ohne Fass/Container)

100% 90% 80% 70% 1994 60% 1997 50% 2000 40% 2001 30% 2002 20% 10% 0% Mineralwasser Limonaden Bier Fruchtsaft Gesamt

Entwicklung Getränkeverpackungen Österreich 1994 - 2002 (abzgl. Gastroanteil, geschätzt)

100%

90%

80%

70% 1994 60% 1997 50% 2000 2001 40% 2002 30%

20%

10%

0% Mineralwasser Limonaden Bier Fruchtsaft Gesamt Source: ARA Reports In Austria the consumption of beverages in the HORECA is included in the packaging reports. To have Austria comparable with other countries draught beverages and HORECA was deducted.

7 SIB Europe Verband des deutschen Getränke- Einzelhandels

- Evaluation

All existing LCA´s have demonstrated that refillable packaging is superior to one ways. There is no better way to prevent waste from arising at the source.

The German Environment Protection Agency has made up a comprehensive LCA in two parts “Ökobilanz für Getränkeverpackungen - Hauptteil” and “Phase 2”3. It looks in “Phase 2” in detail into the LCA of PET packaging and compares it with refillable glass packaging. Even under an optimum scenario of one-way PET in crates (PETCYCLE, French Mineral waters) with an as- sumed return rate of 95 % and a recycled content of 50 % (which is outstanding) the glass refill system is superior. Executive summaries of the two LCA´s could be provided on demand (unfor- tunately in German only).

As regards the environmental aspects of cans, the world’s second largest producer Ball Packaging Europe undertook a “Screening LCA zur Getränkedose”, executed by IFEU Institute4. In all cate- gories “resource consumption”, “global warming”, “acidification”, “summer smog”, “forest area” and “landfill space”, the can was better than the one-way PET bottle, but still far behind the refil- lable glass bottle.

Strengths/Weaknesses

We strongly protest against any comments in the report about re-use like on page 32 of the In- terim Report where it is said that reuse distorts the EU market in favour of the local market: “reuse targets favour local product suppliers over distant ones, who are not able to fulfill the take back obliga- tion”. Particularly since no data is provided to back-up this statement, it is misleading and inap- propriate.

We sincerely hope that the consultancies will come to another conclusion upon considering re-use information.

3 http://kepler.han-solo.net/uba/uba-info-medien-e/mysql_media_erg.php3 4 Institute for Research in Energy and Environment, http://www.ifeu.de

8 SIB Europe Verband des deutschen Getränke- Einzelhandels

Contact Details

Jürgen Resch , Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V., Güttinger Str. 19, 78315 Radolfzell, Tel. mobil: 0171 3649170 Tel. 07732/9995-0, Fax. 07732/9995-77, Email: [email protected] - Co-ordination address -

Günther Guder , Bundesverband des Deutschen Getränkefachgroßhandels e.V. Monschauer Str. 7, 40549 Düsseldorf, Tel. mobil: 0172 2424950, Tel. 0211/683938, Fax. 0211/683602, Email: [email protected]

Wolfgang Brügel , Verband des Deutschen Getränke-Einzelhandels e.V., Laufamholzstraße 314a, 90482 Nürnberg, Tel. 0911/502665, Fax. 0911/5048154

Roland Demleitner , Bundesverband mittelständischer Privatbrauereien e.V. and Association of small and independent breweries in Europe (SIB Europe), Justus-Staudt-Straße 2, 65555 Limburg, Tel. mobil: 0171 5311444, Tel. 06431/52048, Fax. 06431/53612, Email: [email protected]

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European Commission DG Environment G/4 Mr. Otto LINHER Avenue de Beaulieu 5 B-1160 Brussels

Subject : Study on the implementation of Directive 94/62/EC on Packaging and Packaging Waste and options to strengthen prevention and re-use of packaging. Interim Report Date: 4 June 2004

Dear Mr Linher,

We would like to thank you for having had the opportunity to participate in the workshop on May 26 on the above-mentioned topic. Following this interesting meeting, the European Aluminium Association (EAA) would like to make the following remarks on the interim report:

1) Impacts of the Directive

As a preliminary remark we would like to draw you attention to the hypothesis that metals should be counted as 50% aluminium and 50% steel. This is not according to the current reality and, therefore, we recommend the consultants to refer to the tonnages of steel and aluminium used in the RDC/Pira study on the optimum recovery targets.

Environment: Ø We support the view of the consultants not to aggregate the environmental impacts into a single figure nor to monetise them. In the light of recent examples of wrong usage and interpretation of LCA methodology the EAA is strongly opposed to procedures that do not respect the ISO LCA standards. According to these standards it is not permitted to aggregate the impacts into one single figure. It is widely recognised that any LCA result has a subjective moment of judgement due to the selection of criteria used. The fewer the number of criteria used, the further one gets aw ay from an impartial scientific evaluation. Hence an aggregation into a few parameters can never be impartial. Ø We agree with the request from CIAA in the workshop to include water usage and water pollution in the list of environmental impacts. Water usage and water pollution are certainly as important as several major regions of Europe are suffering of water shortages and are obliged to organize the rationing of water usage. Social: Ø Certainly, municipalities and consumers/citizens should be included in the list of social and economic groups being impacted.

Economy: Ø It appears very ambitious to measure the specific impact of the Directive on economic growth and on the packaging, recycling, and waste management industries, as there are many different development factors. A qualitative approach, highlighting examples of changes in the economic evolution resulting clearly from the Directive would be more appropriate.

EAA - Avenue de Broqueville, 12 • B-1150 Brussels, Belgium • Phone: + 32-2-775 63 50 • fax: + 32-2-779 05 31•e-mail: [email protected] • website : www.eaa.net

2) Packaging Environment Indicators

As mentioned above, the EAA is in favour of a life cycle approach, with due attention for the use-phase of products and end-of life recycling. However, proper LCA evaluation of the environmental impacts of such products needs to be done according to internationally agreed practices as laid down in the ISO standards. Neglecting the right procedures and interpretation of over-simplified or incomplete data have led in the past to damaging policy making regarding aluminium and aluminium products. Examples hereof are the perverse economic impacts, without any tangible environmental improvements, of the packaging taxes (beverage and others) in Denmark, the refill quotas and the deposit sanction on one-way beverage containers in Germany, and, more recently, the eco-boni system in Belgium, all based on computations and assertions infringing ISO guidelines. Therefore:

Ø We support the careful appreciation of the consultants to understand their mission as the “exploration” of the concept of a Packaging Environment Indicator (PEI) and not the “development” of a PEI;

Ø In our view, the first question to be addressed is: What is the added value of a PEI, on top of the essential requirements (already aiming at prevention and minimisation, and therefore reduction of environmental impacts), and the recycling and recovery objectives?

Ø The second question we would like to have answered is: What will the PEI be used for and who are the target groups of such an instrument? Is it designed to be an education tool for consumers, a reference for packers/fillers or an official ranking instrument for indicating the “environmental friendliness” of packaging. Different interpretations might lead to different consequences for industry and society;

Ø In the light of the above, we oppose the use of over-simplified indicators as basis for policy- making and the related market based instruments (quotas,taxes,bans,etc…). Ironically, the proposed PEI concerns only the packaging per se, thus ignoring the very functionality of the packaging, aimed at delivering the contained product, with the proper quality, in the right quantity, at the right place, at the right time. A comprehensive analysis must consider the packed product system (i.e. content and packaging), as packaging is not fabricated for itself but to pack and preserve a specific product. The proposed criteria of this PEI, like most LCAs mentioned, neglect the “use phase” of the packaging where it is used to protect a specific product, because it is difficult to measure and quantify. However, it is in this “use phase” that the packaging in the packed product reveals its convenience for the consumers, its benefits in use and the added value from an environmental point of view.

Ø Why are the proposed impacts for this PEI limited to CO2 emissions and waste? Waste is already taken into account in the recycling and recovery targets. We would suggest that a specific environmental impact criterion for packaging is meaningful only if a significant change in the packaging mix will lead to a similar significant change in this impact on society as a whole. We strongly doubt that CO2 emissions constitutes a proper criterion for a PEI, as packaging as a whole, over a life cycle, contributes only to a very minor part of the 4 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe (EU-15) in CO2 equivalent. To our knowledge, packaging itself represents only between 3% and 20% of the energy content of packed consumer products (source:Packforsk), which themselves represent a very modest part of total CO2 emissions.

EAA - Avenue de Broqueville, 12 • B-1150 Brussels, Belgium • Phone: + 32-2-775 63 50 • fax: + 32-2-779 05 31•e-mail: [email protected] • website : www.eaa.net

What could be, in our view the way forward? The EAA identifies two possible directions to be explored for a sensible approach to environmental management via the evaluation of products:

Ø Scientists and political authorities should at first agree on the priorities in the reductions of critical environmental impacts (among which the use of natural resources). On this basis, it will be much more feasible, on technical and economic grounds, to analyse the best ways and means to achieve these goals through contributions from the various economic sectors, including the consumers and government administration. CO2 will be the prime target for housing and transportation, water for agriculture, food, drink, and packaging, etc. This definition of the limits of the “carrying capacity” of Europe is a difficult task, however badly needed to engage all stakeholders in a coherent and complementary plan of action towards sustainable development in practice.

Ø If the idea of a PEI was to be maintained, while the environmental objectives are not yet defined, it must be clear that it cannot be used to regulate the packaging industry. It should rather be considered as a tool for members of the packaging chain, especially packers/fillers who choose their packaging mix, to evaluate their progress over time with the objective of continuous improvement, for a range of environmental impacts for which packaging plays a significant role. The selected impacts should be agreed upon between the EU authorities and the packaging chain. In any other case, the PEI is likely to become a “hazardous” concept.

3) Prevention Plans and Essential Requirements

The EAA would like to highlight that the systematic implementation throughout Europe of the Essential Requirements combined with the on-going competition in the packaging chain for more cost-efficiency in consumer convenience and the implementation of the recycling/recovery objectives make prevention targets useless and possibly counter-productive for the packaging-product combination. The same considerations could be used for packaging prevention plans.

4) Heavy Metals and Other Hazardous Substances

The interim report does not provide any new information and does not propose any conclusions. In these circumstances, we would only like to remind you of the inter-materials position paper of August 2002 (attached) which states that any proposed change in the limits of heavy metals is to be justified on the basis of toxicity tests and to be agreed with the materials industries for implementation. We would also advise the consultant to analyse the technical work done by the Council of Europe on the flows of heavy metals in our global environment and the WHO on the natural contents of the human diet of these products.

We hope these comments will be of interest to you and will contribute to an efficient shaping of the packaging regulations in the EU. We are available for any additional information you would require

Yours sincerely,

Jan te Bos François Pruvost Director Public Affairs Consultant to EAA

EAA - Avenue de Broqueville, 12 • B-1150 Brussels, Belgium • Phone: + 32-2-775 63 50 • fax: + 32-2-779 05 31•e-mail: [email protected] • website : www.eaa.net

European Commission DG Environment G/4 Mr. Otto LINHER Avenue de Beaulieu 5 B-1160 Brussels

Subject : Study on the implementation of Directive 94/62/EC on Packaging and Packaging Waste and options to strengthen prevention and re-use of packaging. Interim Report Date: 4 June 2004

Dear Mr Linher,

We would like to thank you for having had the opportunity to participate in the workshop on May 26 on the above-mentioned topic. Following this interesting meeting, the European Aluminium Association (EAA) would like to make the following remarks on the interim report:

1) Impacts of the Directive

As a preliminary remark we would like to draw you attention to the hypothesis that metals should be counted as 50% aluminium and 50% steel. This is not according to the current reality and, therefore, we recommend the consultants to refer to the tonnages of steel and aluminium used in the RDC/Pira study on the optimum recovery targets.

Environment: Ø We support the view of the consultants not to aggregate the environmental impacts into a single figure nor to monetise them. In the light of recent examples of wrong usage and interpretation of LCA methodology the EAA is strongly opposed to procedures that do not respect the ISO LCA standards. According to these standards it is not permitted to aggregate the impacts into one single figure. It is widely recognised that any LCA result has a subjective moment of judgement due to the selection of criteria used. The fewer the number of criteria used, the further one gets aw ay from an impartial scientific evaluation. Hence an aggregation into a few parameters can never be impartial. Ø We agree with the request from CIAA in the workshop to include water usage and water pollution in the list of environmental impacts. Water usage and water pollution are certainly as important as several major regions of Europe are suffering of water shortages and are obliged to organize the rationing of water usage. Social: Ø Certainly, municipalities and consumers/citizens should be included in the list of social and economic groups being impacted.

Economy: Ø It appears very ambitious to measure the specific impact of the Directive on economic growth and on the packaging, recycling, and waste management industries, as there are many different development factors. A qualitative approach, highlighting examples of changes in the economic evolution resulting clearly from the Directive would be more appropriate.

EAA - Avenue de Broqueville, 12 • B-1150 Brussels, Belgium • Phone: + 32-2-775 63 50 • fax: + 32-2-779 05 31•e-mail: [email protected] • website : www.eaa.net

2) Packaging Environment Indicators

As mentioned above, the EAA is in favour of a life cycle approach, with due attention for the use-phase of products and end-of life recycling. However, proper LCA evaluation of the environmental impacts of such products needs to be done according to internationally agreed practices as laid down in the ISO standards. Neglecting the right procedures and interpretation of over-simplified or incomplete data have led in the past to damaging policy making regarding aluminium and aluminium products. Examples hereof are the perverse economic impacts, without any tangible environmental improvements, of the packaging taxes (beverage and others) in Denmark, the refill quotas and the deposit sanction on one-way beverage containers in Germany, and, more recently, the eco-boni system in Belgium, all based on computations and assertions infringing ISO guidelines. Therefore:

Ø We support the careful appreciation of the consultants to understand their mission as the “exploration” of the concept of a Packaging Environment Indicator (PEI) and not the “development” of a PEI;

Ø In our view, the first question to be addressed is: What is the added value of a PEI, on top of the essential requirements (already aiming at prevention and minimisation, and therefore reduction of environmental impacts), and the recycling and recovery objectives?

Ø The second question we would like to have answered is: What will the PEI be used for and who are the target groups of such an instrument? Is it designed to be an education tool for consumers, a reference for packers/fillers or an official ranking instrument for indicating the “environmental friendliness” of packaging. Different interpretations might lead to different consequences for industry and society;

Ø In the light of the above, we oppose the use of over-simplified indicators as basis for policy- making and the related market based instruments (quotas,taxes,bans,etc…). Ironically, the proposed PEI concerns only the packaging per se, thus ignoring the very functionality of the packaging, aimed at delivering the contained product, with the proper quality, in the right quantity, at the right place, at the right time. A comprehensive analysis must consider the packed product system (i.e. content and packaging), as packaging is not fabricated for itself but to pack and preserve a specific product. The proposed criteria of this PEI, like most LCAs mentioned, neglect the “use phase” of the packaging where it is used to protect a specific product, because it is difficult to measure and quantify. However, it is in this “use phase” that the packaging in the packed product reveals its convenience for the consumers, its benefits in use and the added value from an environmental point of view.

Ø Why are the proposed impacts for this PEI limited to CO2 emissions and waste? Waste is already taken into account in the recycling and recovery targets. We would suggest that a specific environmental impact criterion for packaging is meaningful only if a significant change in the packaging mix will lead to a similar significant change in this impact on society as a whole. We strongly doubt that CO2 emissions constitutes a proper criterion for a PEI, as packaging as a whole, over a life cycle, contributes only to a very minor part of the 4 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe (EU-15) in CO2 equivalent. To our knowledge, packaging itself represents only between 3% and 20% of the energy content of packed consumer products (source:Packforsk), which themselves represent a very modest part of total CO2 emissions.

EAA - Avenue de Broqueville, 12 • B-1150 Brussels, Belgium • Phone: + 32-2-775 63 50 • fax: + 32-2-779 05 31•e-mail: [email protected] • website : www.eaa.net

What could be, in our view the way forward? The EAA identifies two possible directions to be explored for a sensible approach to environmental management via the evaluation of products:

Ø Scientists and political authorities should at first agree on the priorities in the reductions of critical environmental impacts (among which the use of natural resources). On this basis, it will be much more feasible, on technical and economic grounds, to analyse the best ways and means to achieve these goals through contributions from the various economic sectors, including the consumers and government administration. CO2 will be the prime target for housing and transportation, water for agriculture, food, drink, and packaging, etc. This definition of the limits of the “carrying capacity” of Europe is a difficult task, however badly needed to engage all stakeholders in a coherent and complementary plan of action towards sustainable development in practice.

Ø If the idea of a PEI was to be maintained, while the environmental objectives are not yet defined, it must be clear that it cannot be used to regulate the packaging industry. It should rather be considered as a tool for members of the packaging chain, especially packers/fillers who choose their packaging mix, to evaluate their progress over time with the objective of continuous improvement, for a range of environmental impacts for which packaging plays a significant role. The selected impacts should be agreed upon between the EU authorities and the packaging chain. In any other case, the PEI is likely to become a “hazardous” concept.

3) Prevention Plans and Essential Requirements

The EAA would like to highlight that the systematic implementation throughout Europe of the Essential Requirements combined with the on-going competition in the packaging chain for more cost-efficiency in consumer convenience and the implementation of the recycling/recovery objectives make prevention targets useless and possibly counter-productive for the packaging-product combination. The same considerations could be used for packaging prevention plans.

4) Heavy Metals and Other Hazardous Substances

The interim report does not provide any new information and does not propose any conclusions. In these circumstances, we would only like to remind you of the inter-materials position paper of August 2002 (attached) which states that any proposed change in the limits of heavy metals is to be justified on the basis of toxicity tests and to be agreed with the materials industries for implementation. We would also advise the consultant to analyse the technical work done by the Council of Europe on the flows of heavy metals in our global environment and the WHO on the natural contents of the human diet of these products.

We hope these comments will be of interest to you and will contribute to an efficient shaping of the packaging regulations in the EU. We are available for any additional information you would require

Yours sincerely,

Jan te Bos François Pruvost Director Public Affairs Consultant to EAA

EAA - Avenue de Broqueville, 12 • B-1150 Brussels, Belgium • Phone: + 32-2-775 63 50 • fax: + 32-2-779 05 31•e-mail: [email protected] • website : www.eaa.net

APEAL comments on the Interim report by PIRA/ECOLAS (Study on the implementation of Packaging Directive and Reuse (23/04/04))

1) Evaluation of the implementation of the Packaging Directive :

(p. 6) : Among the key assumptions made by PIRA/ECOLAS, the following is made : “Steel & aluminium have not been reported separately and have been given a 50:50 split for metal recycling”.

APEAL would like to highlight that this assumption certainly does not reflect the reality. We understand that thin gauge aluminium (up to 50 microns) is energy recoverable As far as rigid metal packaging is concerned (which contributes to reaching the metal recycling target), according to APEAL’s estimate, the steel/aluminium share in the metal packaging recycling tonnage is 90/10 rather than 50/50 (since in 2001 – for EU15, approximately 173,100 tonnes of mostly aluminium beverage packaging were recycled compared to an estimated 1,802,671 tonnes for steel packaging, incl. household & industrial applications).

It is however true that the Packaging Directive’s metal recycling target was based on the principle of solidarity between the two materials as regards the achievement of recycling objectives. That is why aluminium and steel recycling rates have not been reported separately to the EU.

Sources of information about impact of deposit-based schemes :

Environmental & economic impacts of deposit based systems

The following case reports and studies should be used to quantify the environmental & economic impacts of deposit based systems. Germany is a case in point.

- http://www.europen.be/issues/casestudy.pdf - http://www.europen.be/issues/mandatorydeposits.doc - http://www.europen.be/issues/fairdeal.pdf - http://www.apeal.org/Contents/Enviroment/200312_depositEN.pdf

(p. 13) : Regarding more specifically the economic impacts, the interim report states that economic impact has mainly been assessed on the basis of the Sofres 2000, Argus 2001 and RDC/PIRA studies. We should specify that as regards measures encouraging reuse, the Prognos study of October 2003 gives a more detailed and up to date assessment (though limited to the German situation). The Prognos study1 is mentioned on p.138 of the interim report as part of the relevant literature. Nevertheless, the interim report as presented by the consultants does not reflect yet the conclusions of this study.

(p.15) : recovery and recycling systems : PIRA should also refer to the new schemes in Eastern and Central Europe.

(p. 31) : Administrative burdens : Marking rules under the Packaging Directive and Decision 97/129 have so far been sufficiently flexible to allow producers to inform properly the consumers on the packaging material.

2.1 : Packaging Prevention / Indicators for the environmental performance of packaging (PEI)

When the debate on PEI was launched within the European Parliament while discussing the revision of the Packaging Directive, packaging producers and packaging users have clearly demonstrated from the beginning that the concept of PEI was both unnecessary (because constitutes an additional regulatory instrument), unclear and impractical (because too simplified). We trust EUROPEN will in its comments on this interim report demonstrate once again that a PEI as a tool for prevention would not be appropriate.

1 Prognos-Gutachten : Abschätzung der ökonomischen und ökologischen Effekte einer Pfandpflicht auf bestimmte Getränkeverpackungen – eine Untersuchung im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Arbeit, Bonn 2003

APEAL 4 June 2004

APEAL is convinced that the PEI is unnecessary because it makes no sense to add to prices other indicators for decision making. Indeed the price of packaging is an excellent information tool also for the environmental impact. Consequently, we feel it would be wise not to engage further in the concept of PEI and to show instead greater confidence in the process of economical internalisation of environmental costs into prices.

In addition to those general comments, we would like to draw your attention on two studies demonstrating the possible biases that can be enhanced when trying to make comparisons between packaging systems in terms of environmental impacts :

• http://www.apeal.org/Contents/Base05.html TNO Report 2002/179 - LCA sensitivity and eco-efficiency analyses of beverage packaging systems • http://www.aluminium.org/environment/lca&legislation.asp - Legislation using LCA concerning aluminium by CE Delft

The sensitivity analysis performed by TNO for APEAL, using the Monte-Carlo approach, around the reference values of the UBA II Phase II LCA on beverage packaging systems clearly shows that, as regards eco-efficiency of packaging systems, there is a clear overlap between systems. It once again shows that ecological preference for one packaging against the other is a political choice and is based on pseudo-science.

The EAA study also points out the importance of the sensitivity analysis and the peer review process in using LCA for policy-making. As regards indicators, the study warns against “Weighting” i.e. the process in which the various indicators, resulting from an LCA study, are aggregated into one figure (or a limited number of figures) through the use of subjective weighting factors reflecting the importance of each impact category.

The aim is to facilitate the decision making process by reducing the amount of indicators. LCA practitioners have developed a variety of weighting techniques and methods. These suggest a high scientific nature. However, it is not science. Weighting is about making political value choices, which have to be clearly and explicitly communicated at all times. For this reason, the ISO standards do not allow weighting in comparative LCA’s disclosed to the public. As a result, any LCA study has to end with a certain amount of indicators but not with one figure.

The current limitations of a full LCA are compounded when it comes to over-simplified aggregated indicators.

(p. 42) – We cannot agree with the following sentence : “…even the most simplistic and flawed PEI has the potential to be more accurate than the alternative, which is data-less decision –making”. To our opinion, no decision making that affects competitiveness and the internal market can be justified by a “simplistic and flawed environmental indicator”. It is up to the decision makers (member states) to bring the evidence of the environmental benefit of the measure they propose. They cannot do that with a single environmental criteria and without assessing the whole packaging system in connection with the characteristics of the products itself.

(p. 43) – if a PEI has to be discussed this is a project in itself and needs funding and commitment : a) sensitivity analyses and uncertainty limits need to be integrated in the tool ; b) the combination “packaging – product” has to be reflected in prevention thoughts as clearly demonstrated in the Packforsk report “Packaging – a tool for the prevention of environmental impact”, Report 194, June 2000. c) Allocation methods have been overlooked although considerably influencing the outcome of LCAs d) The use phase is most of the time significant compared to the production phase, therefore the use phase should be considered in life-cycle thinking.

(p. 49) : Dutch study on PEI : According to the interim report, “In the NL, such an indicator might be precise enough to make a clear and fair distinction between different packaging solutions. However it is reported that difficulties have been encountered in practice.”

According to our own sources in the Netherlands, the Dutch study on PEI has not been completed yet due to the many practical difficulties that the concept of PEI has indeed raised. Consequently, we think that it is much too premature for PIRA/ECOLAS to draw any conclusion from the Dutch investigation in the field of PEI.

(p. 50) : PEI and essential requirements : By no means should the PEI be incorporated into essential requirements. Considering the approximate nature of the PEI, introducing it into the essential requirements would enable a member state to ban a packaging and the packaged product on the basis of a single (or a few)

2 environmental factor(s) and a very limited assessment. This would undoubtedly lead to tremendous distortions of the internal market and thereby to high economically detrimental impact.

(p. 53) – Substitution of one-way packaging through reuse system as a means of prevention is questionable. It has been demonstrated in Germany that one-way packaging currently generates less waste than refillable systems. The environmental preference to refillables is a political choice not a given scientific truth.

2.4 : Packaging Prevention – heavy metals and other hazardous substances

(p.102) : National monitoring reports about the concentration of the 4 heavy metals present in packaging were performed in Belgium (VITO) and Denmark (DTI) and confirm the conclusions of the CEN Report CR 13695-1:2000 (Heavy Metals). Neither report does justify the need to further reduce heavy metals levels in packaging.

As the mentioned reports are not specific to a packaging material in particular, the conclusions of these surveys need to be reported for all packaging materials.

If the conclusions for metal packaging are integrated in the Pira Ecolas report, we would like verbatim quotations to be used.

In particular, the Danish DTI report (1997) states that “the conclusions for metal packaging are clear : Hg & Cd were never found (even by ICP method); Pb was found in ferro-based plate at levels lower than 3 ppm ; in aluminium plate up to 87 ppm in the worst case. High levels of lead were found in solderings in some non-food cans (lead soldered cans). The total level exceeded 600 ppm as a total for these cans. … Since Cr is metal chromium (and not CrVI) the findings are not relevant for Directive 94/62”2. The 1998 follow-up report acknowledged the discontinuation of use of lead soldered cans.

CEN Report CR 13695-1:2000 explains that, for food contact use, lead soldered cans were phased out during the 80’s and their use has since been discontinued for all side seam applications. Lead solders were progressively replaced by pure tin soldered or welded side seams. Some exotic imports of lead soldered cans produced outside the EU could still happen but all reports show that lead soldered cans have disappeared from the shelves.

The Belgian VITO report did not identify any particular issue linked to light metal packaging, neither made of steel nor of aluminium. As regards steel drums, the use of Cr(VI) & Pb in pigments for industrial containers is being discontinued but there could still be industrial drums on the market which could have been manufactured according to this old technology. CEPE would be able to comment further re. that particular point.

(2.4.4) : Evaluation of a reduction of the permissible levels In general, we would like to refer to the Joint Position Paper (22/8/2002) about heavy metals, which is still currently valid and which APEAL co-signed and still supports.

(2.4.4.1) : Technical constraints

Steel for packaging complies with Art. 11 of Directive 1994/62 as regards the concentration of the 4 mentioned heavy metals. Only trace levels of Pb are detectable in the finished product due to high recycling of steel. Once present in liquid steel, this trace element cannot be anymore technically removed.

Prior to setting new regulatory thresholds for heavy metals, the use of the current minimisation process of heavy metals and other dangerous substances (likely to be released in ashes, leachates & emissions from packaging), as defined in CEN TR 13695-2:2004 and EN 13428:2004, should be assessed in terms of prevention.

Environmental benefits :

Since there is no technical possibility to reduce the trace levels of Pb in steel, a possible reduction of the permissible concentration limits of Cr(VI), Pb, Cd & Hg below 100 ppm would go against achieving high

2 See DTI Report, 1997, Survey of the content of heavy metals in packaging n the Danish market (Table 4.5 – pages 14 & 15).

3 recycling rates, which is a nonsense as regards environmental policy since increased recycling of steel benefits the environment by saving raw materials and energy.

It has also to be noted that the US CSG Model Toxics in Packaging Legislation (previously managed by CONEG), which is the model for the current heavy metals provisions in Dir. 1994/62, states that the “intent of this Act is to achieve reduction in toxicity without impeding or discouraging the expanded use of recycled materials in the production of packaging and its components”.

The US legislation also restricts the reduction of the 4 heavy metals to 100 ppm to “intentionally introduced” substances and excludes from the definition of “intentionally added” - “the use of recycled materials as feedstock for the manufacture of new packaging materials, where some portion of the recycled materials may contain amounts of the regulated metals”. We consider that the EU should clearly come back to this approach.

In addition, as the limits in the current directive are identical to those of the US CONEG model legislation, any deviation from this figure would evidently create a trade barrier.

3 : Packaging re-use :

This part of the interim remaining to be developed, APEAL will address its comments on these aspects after the 2nd experts group meeting scheduled by the Commission in July.

Additional reference relevant under section 3 on re-use : - Wagner & Partner SA, EW- und MW-Verpackungen für karbonisierte Getränke im ökologischen Vergleich, March 2003, Montreux

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