EuRIC comments on the Roadmap for a New Circular Economy Action Plan
The European recycling industry, as highlighted in its 5 top priorities for 2019-2024, strongly welcomes the European Commission’s renewed ambition to put, thanks to the European Green Deal, the Circular Economy and Climate policy on top of its strategic priorities for the next 5 years. Recycling is a job-intensive industry, creating local, non-outsourceable jobs, which is both resource and climate efficient. To move towards climate-neutrality and speed up the transition towards a circular economy, it is absolutely essential to drastically change important policy and regulatory-drivers applicable to recycling activities and throughout the value chain, based on three equally important priorities:
- Adapt legislation to circular material flows by inter alia “modernizing (…) certain waste laws”;
- Lay down market and fiscal based-instruments to incentivise the use of raw materials from recycling and level the playing field with primary materials;
- Put in place requirements and incentives to design circular products and empower consumers’ sustainable choices through proper labelling.
These three priorities are essential to develop a much needed EU market for secondary raw materials rightly identified in the Roadmap as problem to be tackled.
