European Green Deal – ambitious concept for carbon neutrality in Europe

In December 2019, the European Commission unveiled their hitherto most ambitious plan: With the European Green Deal, the net emissions of all countries belonging to the European Union are to be reduced to zero by 2050. A circular economy is one of the most important components of this plan. The latest step of the EU Commission is a suggestion presented at the end of November for a Europe-wide packaging regulation.

The bundle of measures that makes up the Green Deal is supposed to make Europe the first carbon neutral continent. This means that economic, social and ecological goals need to be combined. The starting hypothesis: Without protecting natural resources, economic progress within the EU will become impossible, and without economic success, it will become impossible to safely guarantee the livelihood of European citizens. Therefore, the Commission has already drafted a detailed road map, one of the most important components of which is the action plan for circular economy.

As a part of the EU action plan, the Commission revised the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD), and towards the end of November 2022, presented a suggestion for a Europe-wide packaging regulation. This is supposed to create a new order for the European packaging market, especially through regulations covering design-for-recycling and a minimum use quota for recyclates.

The goal is to reduce the rising amount of packaging waste. On average, an amount of almost 180 kg of packaging waste is generated in Europe per person and year. Without further measures, the amount of packaging waste would increase by 19 percent by 2030, and the amount of plastic waste would even see an increase of 46 percent. With the new regulations, the EU Commission wants to stop this trend, reduce unnecessary packaging, further reusable or refillable packaging solutions and economically recycle all packaging on the EU market through a closed recycling loop by 2030. Further, the need for primary raw materials is to be decreased and a well-functioning market for secondary raw materials is to be created.

The EU suggestions also propose equal consideration of chemical and mechanical recycling and want to bring about clarity concerning bio-based, compostable and biologically degradable plastics. They define which uses of these plastics present real advantages for the environment, and how they are to be designed, disposed of and recycled. Another goal is to finally put an end to the confusion over with packaging belongs inside which recycling container. To achieve this, common symbols on labels and refuse containers across Europe are planned, which show what materials the packaging is made of and into which container it belongs.

The packaging industry associations have largely welcomed the suggestion. Peter Kurth, president of the BDE Bundesverband der Deutschen Entsorgungs-, Wasser- und Kreislaufwirtschaft (German Federal association of waste and water management and circular economy) is convinced:


For the German association Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen (Association for Plastics, Packaging and Films) this suggestion by the EU means a radical reshaping of the European packaging market. “The Commission's general thrust is in accordance with our goal of using as much packaging as necessary and as little as possible. But this can only work if plastic bashing is left behind and we have a fair competition of materials”, says IK CEO Dr Isabell Schmidt.

With the so-called Single-Use Plastics Directive (Directive 2019/904/EU), the EU has already issued mandatory regulations to reduce the use of plastics. Different European countries follow different interpretations of this Directive. For example, in Spain as of 1 January 2023, there will be a new special tax on non-reusable plastic packaging, while the French government has decided against a plastics tax and finances the cost from its annual budget. In Italy, the starting date for a plastics tax was postponed several times, the last time to 1 January 2023. Now, the government has again waived the tax on single-use plastic packaging, according to Italian media in December 2022. And former EU country Britain has, since April 2022, been charging the Plastic Packaging Tax on plastic packaging that does not contain at least 30 percent recyclates.

In practice, many companies are already looking for solutions which allow them to implement the goals of the Green Deal. The call for carbon neutrality, for example, challenges the developers of automated solutions to combine the digital change with the green transition. To ensure that the comprehensive use of digital technologies does not necessarily lead to a continued increase in use of energy, electronic waste and the carbon footprint, it is necessary to keep in mind the life cycle of a product – from construction to recycling. This is what interpack exhibitor Schmalz does, for example: The specialist for vacuum technologies emphasises short procurement distances – 50 percent of suppliers are based within the same federal state – uses electricity from renewable sources and has established a sustainable distribution system. Schmalz also designs new systems for sustainable vacuum automation that do not depend on pressurised air and function through an intelligent combination of purely electric components. “Digitalisation provides us with many tools to discover energy sinks and dispose of them”, says Dr Maik Fiedler, head of the business areas vacuum automation and vacuum handling at Schmalz.