FEAD welcomes the EP ENVI Committee’s report on the new Circular Economy Action Plan

FEAD, the European Waste Management Association, representing the private waste management industry across Europe, welcomes in general the adopted report.

Our sector, a key contributor to a circular and decarbonised EU economy, expresses its support for crucial ideas such as the need for boosting the demand for secondary raw materials (SRMs) through mandatory recycled content and mandatory Green Public Procurement rules, the need to strengthen separate collection systems, the mandatory eco-design rules for recyclability, the need for establishing material footprint indicators as part of a required hierarchy on materials, as well as the need for safe and efficient waste exports’ procedures.

However, we have more nuanced views on a series of issues:

• – Selective collection should not be harmonised at EU level. Local and national considerations can be key drivers for success in finding the most adapted, efficient, environmentally, and economically sound collections systems, and for not impacting well-functioning existing systems;
• The establishment of targets to cap the generation of residual waste is not needed if recycling targets are in place. Measures for tackling residual waste are sufficiently mentioned in the ENVI report;
• The aim of “minimising the need for incineration” also raises concerns as energy recovery from waste (R1 criterion) is a necessary treatment of waste which cannot be recycled in an efficient ecological way.

Peter Kurth, FEAD’s President underlines: “The waste management sector is at the heart of circular economy. Strong measures to boost the demand for recyclates, public support for investment in selective collection and sorting, and in capacities for recovering non-recyclable waste, are crucial for the success of the new CEAP. These measures should be supported by robust actions, able to make the waste hierarchy an even stronger reality than what it is today”.