Brussels — FEAD members welcome the EU Commission`s non-legislative Public Procurement Package titled “Increasing the impact of public investment through efficient and professional procurement” and support the EU Commission’s continued efforts to ensure that the public procurement rules are properly implemented across the internal market. FEAD believes that public procurement, and in particular green public procurement (GPP) is one of the tools that can contribute to the transition from a linear to a circular economy.
FEAD-President Jean-Marc Boursier commented: “Over recent years, falling oil prices have lowered the price for virgin plastics, creating a price gap with recycled materials leading to the closure of plants and job losses in what should actually be a promising market. Furthermore, the recently announced ban by China on imports as from January 2018 on different waste streams has already dramatically affected recycled materials prices and offtakes. This wake-up call not only urgently requires the creation of more treatment capacity in Europe but also of additional local demand through demand-side measures.”
According to Boursier, a promotion of the use of recycled materials is needed to make them competitive with virgin ones and to stimulating the demand for secondary materials across the entire value chain. „As a way of reaching this goal, GPP must be intensified and the use of recycled content must become mandatory in various public tenders, at EU, Member State, and local authority levels.“
FEAD Secretary General, Nadine De Greef, added: “FEAD does not believe that reliance on voluntary measures alone is enough to stimulate the secondary plastics market. Therefore, we call on the Commission to come up with mandatory EU-wide GPP criteria for plastic products to reach a good balance between environmental performance, cost considerations, market availability and ease of verification. European resource and waste management industry would be happy to see such mandatory measures being proposed in the upcoming Plastics Strategy.”
Source: European Federation of Waste Management and Environmental Services
