Single market turbulence: European Plastics Converters opposes Single Use Plastics Directive ambiguity

04 Nov 2021 --- Some EU member states are failing to uniformly implement the Single Use Plastics Directive (SUPD) and “undermining the integrity of the single market,” according to the trade association European Plastics Converters (EuPC). 

The Brussels-based association says unclear policy measures and rushed implementation of SUPD legislation have led to individual nations adopting divergent rules – something threatening the proper formation of a circular economy. 

Alexandre Dangis, managing director at EuPC, tells PackagingInsights: “We share the need for environmental protection and for ensuring true sustainability with life cycle assessments and scientific approaches, but at the same time it is important rules are objective and clear for all players throughout Europe.”

“The European single market is meant to be one market with rules and regulations allowing the free circulation of goods in Europe, therefore different regulations for identical products hampers the possibility of economic operators of a member state to another one.”

Rules unenforced
The SUPD, which came into force on July 3, bans the ten most polluting single-use plastic packaging items: cutlery, plates, straws and stirrers, plastic bags, packets and wrappers and expanded polystyrene (EPS) food and beverage cups and containers. 

EuPC says SUPD legislation was rushed into enforcement.However, only 11 of the 27 EU member states have enforced EPS bans so far, according to research conducted by EuPC and two other trade associations. “The situation is even worse for the marking rules for single-use beverage cups, which so far only apply in five member states,” EuPC says in a statement.

The findings give vindication to earlier warnings that the SUPD’s “peculiar” scope for interpretation would lead to legislative disparity and single market fragmentation. 

Recent measures announced in France and Spain, banning plastic packaging for fruits and vegetables weighing less than 1.5 kg, add further complications, says Dangis. 

“These measures create a de facto prohibition without having truly assessed the impact of such drastic change not only in France, but also for operators that import in France – speaking from a strict single market point of view.” 

Legal leeway 
A central concern for plastics industry players in the run-up to SUPD enforcement was the European Commission (EC) rushing the legislation into enactment without developing clear guidelines. Published four weeks before the July 3 deadline, EuPC insists there is little clarity for implementation. 

Olivier Van Volden, an expert on packaging and circular economy at Belgian chemical federation Essenscia PolyMatters, says the room for interpretation leads to “unexpected bias.”

For example, some fully recyclable single-use plastic items are banned, while paper-based packaging products coated in plastics are still permitted, he points out. This allowance will enable contaminants to continue entering the ecosystem and for producers to circumvent extended producer responsibility schemes (EPR), he argues. 

Recently, the Italian government came under fire from environmental activists for exempting single-use plastic items purporting to beItaly has exempted biodegradable single-use plastics, sparking a legal dispute with the EC.  biodegradable. An official complaint lodged by Greenpeace Italy, Rethink Plastic Alliance, ECOS and ClientEarth could potentially lead to legal proceedings between the EC and the Italian government. 

EU breakdown 
These examples of unconcrete and biased guidelines, along with disparity in national enforcement, could result in serious legal and economic breakdowns. Martin Engelmann of the German Plastic Packaging Association, says he fears if the EC does not act swiftly in addressing the issue, free trade within the EU could crumble. 

“We are very concerned about the trend to break up the harmonized packaging rules in the internal market and to create special national rules, often on plastic packaging. This is dismantling piece by piece the EU’s greatest achievement – the single market for the exchange of goods – most of which are packaged in plastic,” he asserts.

“We call on the EC to act as guardian of the treaties more strongly and to take more consistent action against such diverging national rules.” 

Biodegradable debate 
With the complaint against Italy’s exemption of “biodegradable” single-use plastic items still awaiting a resolution, debates over this aspect of the SUPD guidelines have intensified, particularly as many industry experts assert certain biodegradable plastics can be an effective solution for a circular economy. 

A Tipa-commissioned review from March found “landslide expert support” for compostable packaging across the EU for reducing plastic contamination in organic waste streams and increasing the amount of food waste captured for recycling.

Critics argue large amounts of misinformation and false advertising are used by industry to “greenwash” single-use plastic items as “eco-friendly.” 

By Louis Gore-Langton