The sender sounds like sound science: in a press release, the „Academic Society for Health Advice“ lists all kinds of arguments against the planned EU plastics tax. According to the press release, unnamed experts have voiced harsh criticism. The so-called „plastic tax“ is neither effective for environmental protection nor for budget consolidation.
Arguments of the industry
However, the whole truth is that plastics manufacturer Paccor is behind the academic organisation. Now that the European Union has been unable to agree on a common budget for the coming years, fears are growing in the industry about a new financing idea from some EU politicians. A proposal by EU Council President Charles Michel envisages a levy on non-recyclable plastic packaging. Under the proposal, a levy of 80 cents would be charged per kilogramme of non-recycled packaging plastic.
Because the Press Release will find advocates throughout the packaging industry, packaging journal publishes excerpts of the report - for documentation and opinion-forming purposes
Plans raise questions
At this point, industry experts immediately raise important questions about the structure of the proposed levy - for example, what should be done with recyclable plastic packaging that is simply not recycled? Will these products also be subject to the levy? Observers - not only in Brussels - expect lively discussions on these and other detailed questions, including with the industry concerned. Against this backdrop, insiders in Brussels believe that the proposed „plastic tax“ is still a long way off due to a lack of foreseeable consensus - particularly between the EU member states.
Furthermore, political observers fundamentally doubt that significant taxes can be enforced at EU level at all. This is because the EU's own taxes would shift fiscal sovereignty from the national governments to Brussels. And the national governments are not interested in this.
Apart from this, critics such as the Federation of German Industries (BDI) consider the proposed levy to be an unsuitable instrument that will neither help protect the environment nor solve budgetary problems.
Plastic levy lacks earmarking
The EU Commission has not yet presented a sensible impact assessment on the subject, says Martin Engelmann from the Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen (IK), meaning that nobody, not even the Brussels authority, can currently make reliable statements on the effects of such a measure on sustainability, explains the expert. Together with other market experts, he also criticises the fact that the revenue from the levy is not earmarked for a specific purpose, but is to flow directly into the EU's general budget. Additional funds for further research and development in the field of plastics recycling are therefore not to be expected from the planned levy. Engelmann concludes that it will therefore have virtually no direct impact on the objectives of the circular economy or environmental protection.
Instead, it would deprive those countries in Europe that are still working on establishing an efficient recycling structure, but also those that are committed to expanding their existing capacities in this area, of the resources they need to do so. According to calculations, the plastics tax would cost European industry at least 8.24 billion euros per year.
Optimising circulation better with money
Ultimately, a „plastics tax“ would therefore deprive manufacturers in the EU member states of important resources that they need to further optimise the circular economy for plastic packaging - in line with the political objective that all packaging in Europe should be recyclable by 2030.
What's more, the recycling infrastructures in most EU countries are still the responsibility of local authorities. Observers therefore fear that the member states are unlikely to be very interested in investing in this infrastructure - if instead all packaging could be categorised as non-recyclable and a „tax“ levied on it. In this case, however, the recycling of paper, metal and glass would also be impaired, which is unlikely to be politically desirable.
In this overall context, it should not be forgotten that experts are still debating whether plastic recycling should be favoured over newly produced alternatives from an ecological point of view.
Sceptics therefore fear that the introduction of a plastics tax in the EU, which is currently under discussion, would ultimately only have a loose-lose effect, with one big loser: the environment
Source: Press release from the Academic Society for Health Advice
- an initiative of PACCOR -
Study Association for Health Counselling e.V.
