Data show that in the EU countries, only about 5% of plastic packaging has been used more than once, most of the remaining discarded.According to the European Commission's calculation, the cost of the EU in plastic projects each year about 70 million to 1050 Billion euros Fratern Timmermans, vice chairman of the European Commission, said: 'The EU can no longer afford such a' plastic strategy '' and 'If we do not change our policies, we may die.' '.
The agency reports that the EU is embarking on a new 'plastic strategy' that is part of the EU's efforts to promote a recycling economy in which products, secondary materials and raw materials are recycled as much as possible to minimize waste. To this end, the EU has introduced the relevant laws require member countries to limit the consumption of plastic bags and to curb the release of plastic garbage to the ocean, and further measures are currently being implemented, including the classification of plastic garbage disposal. In addition, the European Commission intends to limit one-off in 2018 New rules for plastic items, such as napkins, disposable cutlery, straws or coffee mugs.
In the protection of the oceans, the Commission also plans to force the port cities to provide waste disposal facilities to effectively prevent the tiny plastic residues from entering the human body through the food chain and endangering the health. So far, the EU exports about half of the collected and classified plastic waste to Foreign countries, of which 85% are exported to China, but China stopped importing these trash in early January this year, making the implementation of these measures more and more urgent.
Timmermans said that this decision from China is a challenge for the EU and for the EU to restart and think about it. 'Can Europeans be able to recover our own garbage?' Timmermans said that one Industry insiders tell him that the future of plastic recycling may be a lucrative business that consumers appear to be ready to take, but the current format is still difficult because of a lack of a uniform end-of-life standard in the EU.
In spite of this, he said, the European Commission still hopes to create 200,000 additional job opportunities for the refuse processing industry by introducing new regulations by 2030. Earlier, the EU's budget commissioner Günther Oettinger proposed that plastic Taxes may also become part of the EU's new regulatory framework, but some experts question the validity of the new tax, noting that not every tax will help guide consumer behavior.
The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung says the advantage of plastic recycling over tax collection or purely banning production is that it leaves room for new technologies and investment in related fields, which is what the EU now Lack of .European Union in 1988 put forward the concept of recycling, and with a unique symbol (green triangle arrow), but thirty years later, still more than 70% of the trash will eventually landed in the landfill, and the rest It was recycled.
"Süddeutsche Zeitung" commented that the EU still needs to put forward more strategies in tackling the issue of plastics, which is a political issue rather than an economic one. Consumption can only be changed if there is a substitute, otherwise garbage As mountains continue to grow, it is also necessary to extend the useful life of plastic and plastic products beyond the plastic tax, which should not be a costly plastic that should be discarded but should be drastically reduced in the plastics industry The total consumption.