UPM-Biofore-Magazine-3-2014-EN

TEXT VESA PUOSKARI

PHOTOGRAPHY UPM; COURTESY OF THE INTERVIEWEE

THE BILL STATES THAT 70% OF MUNICIPAL WASTE AND 80% OF PACKAGING WASTE MUST BE RECYCLED BY 2030.

Jori Ringman-Beck

T he European Union is reforming its circular economy legislation with the goal of improving the utilisation of waste as a resource. According to the bill, recyclable waste may no longer be placed in landfill as of 2025. CEPI’s Sustainability Director Jori Ringman-Beck says that the proposed EU legislation would force member states to improve their recyclable material collection processes. This applies particularly to member states whose processes are currently not so advanced. “For example, if paper can no longer be taken to landfill, this will make it easier for the paper industry to get new rawmaterial. Access to recovered paper has been a key issue inmany member states and some mills have even had temporary closures due to the lack of rawmaterial.” The bill states that 70% of municipal waste and 80% of packaging waste must be recycled by 2030. The European Commission also proposes separate collection goals for plastics, wood, ferrous metals, aluminium, glass, as well as cardboard and paper. “The primary goal is to increase awareness of the circular economy to assist the development of new busi- ness models and the management of materials. Companies could ponder, for example, whether they could rearrange their business or find new partners who would be able to utilise their by-products as rawmaterials,” he says. Recycling of paper is a success story of the European circular economy – around 72% of paper was recycled in 2012. The recycling rate of paper has remained stable despite the fact that the consumption of paper has decreased. According to a report by the European Recovered Paper Council (ERCP), the quality of recycled materials has also improved.

EU PROMOTES RECYCLING OF WASTE

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