The European Parliament and EU member states have finalised an updated regulation on waste shipment, prohibiting export of plastic waste from the bloc to non-OECD countries.
The provisional deal needs to be formally approved later this year. Once adopted and published in the EU's official journal, the regulation will become directly applicable in EU states.
Parliament said it ensured plastic waste can no longer be exported to non-OECD countries two-and-a-half years after entry into force. A conditional transition period for individual countries could be granted from five years after the regulation enters into force. But the European Commission said this would only happen if the non-OECD receiving country informs and convinces the commission of its ability to manage waste sustainably.
Plastic waste exports to OECD countries will also require the concerned countries' prior written notification and commission consent, as well as closer compliance monitoring. The commission will be empowered to monitor EU waste exports to OECD states with the possibility to act, if such exports create environmental problems. EU exporters must ensure non-EU facilities receiving their waste undergo an independent audit.
Officials said intra-EU waste shipments for recycling should become easier due to digitalised procedures, although shipping of waste destined for disposal in another EU country to be allowed only "exceptionally", parliament said.
"The EU will finally assume responsibility for its plastic waste by banning its export to non-OECD countries," said Danish centre-right EPP's Pernille Weiss, who led parliament's negotiating team.
European recycling industry association Euric has previously highlighted the importance of boosting European recycling capacity and recyclate demand, if exports are to be phased out without affecting recycling rates.
Restrictions on extra-EU plastic waste exports would particularly affect flexible PE. An average of nearly 105,000 t/month of PE waste has been exported from the EU-27 since January 2022, data from Global Trade Tracker show. Most of this is film waste, according to recycling association Plastic Recyclers Europe (PRE). Nearly three quarters of this went to non-OECD countries, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, and Turkey is the only major OECD importer of EU PE waste.
PRE's most recent data estimate that 2.4mn t of flexible film waste was processed by EU recyclers in 2020, suggesting European recycling capacity or exports to OECD countries would need to increase by more than 40pc to prevent a ban on non-OECD exports from negatively affecting recycling rates. This would also need to include capacity to recycle bales with a lower proportion of transparent films, such as 90/10 or 80/20 bales. These are less desirable to many European recyclers owing to the need to pre-sort the material to manufacture transparent or translucent film pellets, which are more valuable than non-transparent pellets.
Non-OECD exports of other plastic waste types are already much lower, at just over 5,000 t/month for polypropylene (PP) and just under 10,000 t/month for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) since the start of January 2022.
A version of the regulation released in January included a requirement for plastic waste exports to OECD countries to be phased out over four years, although this was not specifically mentioned in today's statements from the parliament and commission. The latter did say it would "also monitor waste exports to OECD countries and take action if such exports create environmental problems in the country of destination."
