Frank Koelewijn - PETCORE´s Director General
Distance to target

Obviously, the observation that the ecological burden per transported kilometer for glass is significantly higher than that for PET reflects the differences in weight per transported liter. Does this mean that a Spätburgunder from Baden can no longer be sold in Milan or that a good bottle of Chianti from Tuscany should not be served in a Berlin restaurant? I certainly hope not.

This brings us to the heart of the matter. The two types of products mentioned earlier: pre-consumption and post-consumption beverage bottles, are examples of very fundamental issues relevant to any product (and most types of recovered waste), deserving wider public and political attention.

It is a question of how to balance free trade requirements prescribed in the European Treaty, with the increasingly important quest for true sustainability.

The main ecological impact of transporting products over a certain distance centers on the consumption of energy. The key question is, how much are Europeans willing to pay for a glass of Chianti in terms of energy taxes, compared with the pleasure of tasting the velvety wonder from Tuscany.

This continues to be the focus of an intense political debate where unfortunately, the leaders of our member states have yet to come to a conclusive agreement.

Before we enter into more detail on this interesting subject, lets make clear that we are now no longer talking about the impact of transporting beverages from A to B, but about the way Europe should address the larger picture. After all, as our LCA indicates, the whole energy impact of one-way PET, including feedstock, production, transport and recovery, is so small in comparison with refillable glass, that it equals to the average German driving 40 km per year in his VW Golf! That puts things into perspective.

Now, back to our topic. It is obvious that Germany cannot impose an energy tax on imported Chianti without Italy imposing an energy tax on the Spätburgunder. That is a consequence of having a European playing field.

Perhaps less obvious, but equally logic, is the expectation of EU citizens that the Union needs to implement sustainability measures in a sustainable way, meaning that not only ecological aspects, but also economical and societal needs are taken into account. Such approach does not make it easier to reach consensus on a reform of energy taxes, but it is the only way forward.

I dare to say that in Europe, most national attempts to unilaterally impose additional duties on international goods or services are aimed at protecting local markets. They often come under the disguise of “protecting the environment”. You should expect the European Commission and the Court of Justice to clamp down on such national initiatives much faster and more decisively, than in the past.

The same free market principles do not necessarily apply to the marketing and sale of recovered post-consumption products, often wrongly referred to as “recovered waste”. In reality these products are valuable raw materials, recovered from municipal waste. We know that it costs money to recover post-consumer products, but it is a price we are willing to pay to help protecting the environment. To be more precise: protection of  the environment is the only reason why we are willing to pay that price.

This means that collection and sorting of post-consumer products is subsidised, paid for by those that place the products on the market. It leads to the logical conclusion that free market principles only apply to subsidised recovered products as long as the prime objective, namely protection of the environment, is not being jeopardised. This is a point well recognised by national collection agencies, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice, but the European Commission has, this far, failed to provide the tools needed to transform expectations into enforceable practices.

For PET, we have covered the distance to target set by the German Environment Ministry. PET beverage containers, be it one-way, two-way or refill, meet, or exceed, the German refillable glass benchmark and we have a full-size LCA to prove that. In terms of a level playing field and truly sustainable policies though, there is still much work to do to cover the distance from where we are today to the target of where we need to be tomorrow.

Frank Koelewijn