Producer responsibility will remain key in achieving sustainability goals

Despite the expansion of waste policy to tackle the broader goals of sustainability and resource preservation, the concept of producer responsibility continues to play a key role in achieving a sustainable future.

Over the course of two days over 500 delegates representing politics, business, science, and civil society from Europe and beyond discussed new trends in waste management and environmental policy.

In his concluding remarks, Joachim Quoden, General Manager of PRO Europe s.p.r.l., the umbrella organization for European packaging and packaging waste recovery and recycling schemes, highlighted that the role of producer responsibility schemes remains key, even if the policy focus is shifting: “Looking at the European Commission’s increasing emphasis on sustainable consumption and production, for example, producer responsibility schemes within PRO EUROPE have not only substantially contributed to raising the environmental awareness and changing the behaviour of consumers throughout Europe, but have also supported industry in the process of reducing and optimising their packaging.”

The PRO EUROPE Congress also featured policy experts from outside of Europe. According to Mr. Quoden, the discussion on international trends in waste management showed that “there is a clear role to play for the European Union, and also for PRO EUROPE, as a partner for knowledge transfer” that could help address the various challenges to sustainable waste management on a global level.

A highlight of the Congress was the presentation of the report “Let’s change our daily habits” by a delegation of 40 out of over 3000 school children participating in the 3rd Youth Eco Parliament to Wataru Iwamoto, Director of Social Sciences, Research and Policy at UNESCO. Mr. Iwamoto showed himself impressed by the report and the overall project: ”Partnership and networking are key to the success of education for sustainability and the Youth Eco Parliament is exemplary in this respect.”

He called upon the Congress participants to continue to listen to young people and to discuss the planet’s future together with them. The Youth Eco Parliament report will feed into the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development report.

For further information please contact:

PRO EUROPE (Packaging Recovery Organisation Europe) is the umbrella organisation for the packaging and packaging waste recovery schemes which use the "Green Dot" trademark. PRO EUROPE acts as the authoritative voice and common policy platform for its members, representing the interests of all packaging recovery and recycling organisations mainly using the "Green Dot".

PRO EUROPE’s members span 31 countries: 25 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom), 2 candidate countries (Turkey, Croatia), Norway, Iceland, Ukraine and Canada.

The members of PRO EUROPE wish to demonstrate that the recycling of used packaging is an important step on the path towards the sustainable development that is necessary to safeguard our planet for future generations. Their work in Europe and worldwide is both successful and transparent.

PRO EUROPE is headquartered in Brussels. The President is Bernard Hérodin (Eco-Emballages S.A., France), the General Manager is Joachim Quoden, and Pascal Gislais and Ursula Denison act as Secretary Generals.

For detailed information, please visit www.pro-europe.info

The Youth Eco-Parliament (YEP) is an environmental education programme initiated in 2004 by PRO EUROPE, in partnership with the Ecole et Nature Network. Believing that youngsters from different countries can share a common educational approach and take an active part in today’s society on environmental issues, the YEP was created with the aim of enabling young people to act alongside adults to protect the environment as well as offering them an opportunity to experience a form of democracy, exercise citizenship and open their mind to environmental issues.

The YEP is therefore an educational process helping participants develop skills in observation and finding solutions to environment issues. It teaches youngsters to put environmental values first and encourage them to become involved both individually and on a group level in the social and political life of their country and planet. The programme is also characterized by a multicultural dimension, through exchanges between different countries and recognition of the value of each culture. Finally, by experiencing this project, the young people have found it has given them an awareness of the financial challenges related to sustainable management of our environment.

Admittedly is valid this verdict of guilty?

"Europe's waste problems are still growing. After all, each inhabitant of the EU Member States produces between 250 and 620 kilograms of household waste per year. About 25 to 30 percent of this is packaging waste."

Note: New Packaging Directive 2004/12/EC (February 18, 2004) recycling quotas, which all member states have to fulfil, as for recovery and REcycling of specific materials:

Plastic packaging min.: 22,5 % only.

Related in PETrecycling.cz:

• 06.06.2008 Innovation theme at Lisbon conference

More articles on IP PETrecycling.cz:
Articles in archives: 2007 > 2006 > 2005 > 2004  > 2003 > 2002 > 2001 > 2000