Europe ups steel packaging recycling rates
year to reach just over 2.1 million tonnes, though the EU15
countries remain way ahead of new member states.
Nonetheless, the Association of European Producers of Steel for Packaging (APEAL) claims that the figures confirm steel's leading position in packaging recycling with an overall European recycling rate of 61 per cent.
The figures provide ammunition for Europe's beverage can manufacturing sector, which believes it has done much to put in place infrastructure to achieve good rates of recycling.
The sector has certainly felt discriminated by Germany's one-way deposit law.
"The beverage can is meeting all essential requirements of the Packaging Directive for its manufacture and recyclability and it should not be possible to more or less completely eliminate such a packaging from the market in less than a year," Lars Emilson, chairman of the Beverage Can Makers in Europe (BCME), said recently.
The mandatory deposit on disposable drinks packaging has also been met by almost unanimous opposition from the packaging industry. APEAL claims that the system has cost a drop in industry turnover of €1.2 billion and a loss of €50 million in beer tax revenue.
In any case, the controversy over Germany's deposit system has highlighted the trend towards further recycling growth, something that steel packaging firms have had to take seriously. APEAL estimates that, by the end of 2008, the recycling of steel packaging in the EU15 should near 70 per cent, with an average annual growth of 3.4 per cent.
Two main factors support this trend. First of all, the progressive adoption into national law of the Landfill Directive will lead to a ban on landfilling unprocessed waste.
This will accelerate implementation of household waste sorting and recovery infrastructure in Europe. As a result, recycling will increase and so will the installed Municipal Solid Waste incineration capacity, where steel is magnetically sorted before or after incineration and recycled at the steel mills.
Secondly, the new 50 per cent joint recycling target of the Packaging Directive for steel and aluminium packaging which will have to be reached in 2008 by 12 EU Member States and in 2011 by Portugal, Ireland and Greece, should further boost the extension of separate collection schemes in the EU.
Although the collection and recycling of packaging in most of the 10 new EU Member States is still in its infancy, APEAL is confident that steel packaging recycling will take off in the years to come. Hence, as in Western Europe, the collection of industrial packaging in steel (drums, steel strapping, etc) is already well organised with average recycling rates mostly above 80 per cent.
For household packaging, the implementation of the collection infrastructure in the new member states is taking place progressively via, mainly, integrated waste management systems based on the 'Green Dot' model, but integrating also the existing collection infrastructure.
Increased recycling of steel packaging improves the material's environmental profile and contributes towards sustainable use of resources through the saving of raw materials and the resulting energy.
The European steel for packaging industry therefore supports recycling through a take-back guarantee. It also actively promotes the recycling of post-consumer steel packaging and the adoption by the end consumers of an ethical behaviour with regards to packaging disposal by supporting national campaigns managed by Vacances Propres (France), Nederland Schoon (the Netherlands), Aktion Saubere Landschaft (Germany), Keep Britain Tidy (UK).
Similar initiatives in Spain and Belgium are in development.
APEAL represents 92 per cent of the total production of steel for packaging in Europe. Its members are Arcelor Packaging International, Corus Packaging Plus, Rasselstein and US Steel Kosice.
