Rethink Plastic provides feedback on the Circular Economy Act

The Rethink Plastic Alliance is advocating for a Circular Economy Act that truly rises to the challenge and reflects the urgent need to reduce, reuse and recycle materials. Concerningly, the Call for Evidence suggests that the Commission’s main focus is on downstream measures. While we acknowledge and support the need to improve recycling in the EU, we are calling for a CE Act that accurately reflects the waste hierarchy and therefore also includes strong measures on waste prevention and reuse, while ensuring material loops are toxic-free.

In line with this, the Rethink Plastic Alliance urges the Commission to:

• Use a dual legal basis: Establishing a dual legal basis under both environmental and Single Market provisions of the EU Treaty (Article 114 and 192 TFEU) for the CE Act will preserve environmental integrity while improving the coherency of the EU Single Market.
• Introduce binding EU-wide material footprint targets: The CE Act should be used as an opportunity to significantly decrease the EU’s material and consumption footprints to bring them into planetary boundaries as soon as possible.
• Reduce the number of polymers in plastic: The number of poorly recyclable and harmful polymers has substantially multiplied and this is fundamentally unsustainable. We therefore call for a reduction of polymers used in virgin plastics with the aim of phasing out those that are most harmful and those that impede recycling and reuse.
• Mandate EPR to fund prevention, repair and reuse: EPR is a key source of funding for waste management in the EU but it fails to support more resource-efficient measures such as waste prevention, reuse, repair, refurbishment, and remanufacturing. The CE Act should reform EPR schemes so that they effectively promote the scaling-up of circular processes beyond waste management, including the establishment and development of reuse systems.
• Leverage public procurement as a driver for reuse: The CE Act must deliver on setting mandatory and impactful criteria for public procurement of circular goods. In particular, it should be done in a way that creates predictable demand for reuse.
• Restrict substances of concern in plastic: The CE Act must promote clean manufacturing and toxic-free material cycles. This includes ensuring that all chemicals in plastic products are used more safely and sustainably, minimising and substituting chemicals that have a chronic effect on human health and the environment, and phasing out the most harmful ones for non-essential societal use.
• Ensure high-quality recycling: The CE Act should promote the redesign of plastic towards more mono-materials and safer chemicals so that it can be mechanically recycled in a way that delivers high-quality recyclates. The two main technologies promoted under the undefined concept of “chemical recycling”, namely pyrolysis and gasification, should not be considered as recycling technologies. Rather, these inefficient and highly polluting technologies should be considered as chemical recovery and they should not be promoted under the CE Act as a sustainable solution to the plastic waste crisis.
• Tackle illegal exports of WEEE: The implementation of export bans needs to be improved and sufficient resources for enforcement in both exporting and importing countries should be ensured to address this problem, including inspections for stronger border control.
• Develop well-designed End-of-Waste criteria: We are in favour of the EU developing EU-wide End-of-Waste (EoW) criteria that ensure recycled materials are safe, traceable, and used within a closed regulatory loop. It is crucial that EoW criteria developed under the CE Act are well-designed so that they provide a single standard for recyclates quality, ensure alignment with chemicals and product legislation, and prevent circumvention of waste-trade controls.