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May 6, 2020

FEAD co-signs a joint open letter – the EU Green Deal is a motor for economic recovery

Brussels, 6th May 2020 – In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, three European trade association – FEAD, EuRIC and CEWEP – representing EU waste management and recycling industries, have issued an open letter addressed to the European Commission expressing the need to safeguard the level of ambition for The European Green Deal and for the new Circular Economy Action Plan in Europe’s economic recovery plan.

While the signatories understand the need to re-shuffle priorities to provide swift responses to the COVID-19 outbreak, we believe that the post-crisis offers a momentum to make the EU Green Deal a motor in Europe’s economic recovery. Peter Kurth, FEAD’s President, adds: ”The new Circular Economy Action Plan and the new Industrial Strategy for Europe are the right responses to the economic recession, together with directing a massive part of the European Recovery Fund towards investments and services needed to make Europe climate-neutral by 2050. Circular industrial value chains and infrastructures for selective collection of waste, sorting, recycling, residual waste recovery, are essential for achieving this goal, with more than 400 000 local, innovative, green jobs

Waste recovery and recycling outputs not only substitute raw materials, often imported from third countries, but also save significant GHG emissions and energy. Among the priorities set in the new Circular Economy Action Plan, the signatories would like to stress the absolute need to:

  • Lay down measures to stimulate the demand for secondary raw materials in products through recycled content and green public procurement, incentives rewarding value chains that contribute to save GHG and energy, to bridge circular economy and climate policy.
  • Speed up work on eco-design to ensure that tomorrow’s products will last longer and be easier to recycle when reaching end-of-life.
  • Enhance investment certainty by implementing current recycling targets with the necessary financial support for countries lagging behind and consider setting up targets for industrial and commercial waste.
  • Continue to strengthen the internal market and expedite the creation of a well-functioning EU market for secondary raw materials; pushed forward by simplified EU-wide waste shipment procedures and end-of-waste criteria.
  • Resume a fact-based discussion on the proper treatment of residual waste, which cannot be recycled, through energy-recovery or final disposal.
  • Prevent that significant waste streams, suitable for recycling or recovery, massively go to landfills. Existing recycling and landfilling targets for municipal waste need to be implemented without further delay; and more ambitious measures are needed for other waste streams to be recycled and recovered, and to divert them from large scale landfilling.

For further information, please contact: info@fead.be