Beverage carton industry seeks sustainable changes

The Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) has called on Frédérique Ries MEP (Renew Europe, Belgium), rapporteur for the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), to consider adding its sustainable changes to PPWR’s vision.

ACE has said that, while it supports the European Commission’s vision that by 2030 all packaging should be recyclable and/or reusable, it also asks Ries to adapt the draft legislation in order to meet the goals of an “ambitious” PPWR revision.

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The first of ACE’s suggestions is the need for a 90 percent mandatory collection target. It has said that “the industry needs enabling conditions to ensure beverage cartons are recycled at scale by 2035”.

Citing the benefits of this measure, ACE claims that a mandatory collection target for packaging formats would provide predictable packaging waste flows that could incentivise investments in recycling infrastructure and technologies.

The second suggestion from ACE is for there to be “exemption from reuse targets for microbiological sensitive products”. It has said this as it claims “microbiological sensitive products that cannot maintain their qualities through the addition of preservatives need to be packed in aseptic packaging to maintain the hygiene and nutritional value of the product”.

ACE has also said that this is “especially important” for products with a long shelf life and believes that mandatory reuse targets should exempt sensitive beverages with these specific needs.

Thirdly, ACE notes  that there ought to be a feasibility assessment of the recycled content targets for contract sensitive packaging.

Currently, the European Commission’s proposal defines recycled content targets for contact sensitive packaging of respectively 10 percent by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040. However, ACE has said that it expects that “ambitious recycled content targets” included in the PPWR will make market availability “even more challenging”.

With this in mind, ACE is hoping to encourage the European Commission to “re-assess the availability of such recycled content prior to the enforcement of these targets”.

“To help mitigate the challenge of the availability of recycled content on the market, an equivalent should be established between biobased/renewable plastic content and recycled plastic content as sustainably sourced renewable materials are a low-carbon, circular and food safe solution,” said ACE.

Finally, ACE has highlighted their desire for there to be “sound, technical input” from the industry regarding the Design for Recycling (DfR) guidelines.

DfR Guidelines are technical documents that ACE say need to be “evidence-based, robust and take account of industry innovation”. To ensure DfR Guidelines duly reflect in-depth technical knowledge and latest innovation, ACE has claimed that it is important to include experts from the industry and technical institutes in the development of the DfR Guidelines.

With this in mind, ACE is calling for the European Commission to mandate The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) to develop the guidelines. What’s more, it has said that, as an alternative, the creation of a stakeholder/industry advisory body to help with the development of the delegated acts “would be necessary”.