The environment and recycling are an increasingly trending topic in the politics of nearly all nations. Due to this renewed interest in climate change and its concurrent factors, politicians are moving towards a sustainable green future in their political agendas.
Also, the European Union and its members are programming their next moves, aiming at emissions reduction and an efficiency increase in recycling. The European Green Deal is a policy initiative package for the Europe green transition with the prime objective of climate neutrality by 2050.
The policy package represents an interconnected approach to different areas of application. This kinship within the operative sections of work guarantees high efficiency in the optimization because of the strict link between the involved actors of the process, resulting in a positive-effect chain reaction.
What is the meaning of climate neutrality?
Climate neutrality represents the balance between human-made pollutants emitted and their absorption. It is an ideal balance in which the same amount of anthropic emission released is compensated by an equivalent quantity of CO2 or greenhouse gas removed.
The concept of climate neutrality came after the need to maintain global warming within the maximum range of +2 centigrade degrees compared to the pre-industrial revolution levels.
What are the steps to get climate neutrality?
The European Commission set an intermediate objective to reach the final aim of climate neutrality. The medium course objective is named "Fit for 55%", representing the percentage of emission reduction set by 2030 compared to the 1990 levels. This is a policy package made of 13 laws and proposals with current policies aiming to achieve emissions reduction.
The measures range from energy efficiency to methane emissions in private industry, not excluding the likes of recycling. In particular, there's a consistent modification of the packaging waste policies.
According to Bruxelles data, Europeans produce up to 180 kg of packaging waste yearly. Without any action, authorities estimated an increase of 19% in waste production in 2030. The result of such incrementation is the rising use of virgin materials for packaging products, along with an enlargement in the percentage of packaging waste.
The European Parliament adopted the line of increasing the use of reusable packages and limiting overpacking to address the menace of packaging waste to the climate. The revolution starts with product labels, with a new policy on the displayed pieces of information.
All biodegradable plastic product labels now have to show the calculated biodegradation time correlated with the necessary ambient conditions and under what circumstances it would happen.
Furthermore, there is a clamp down on disposable packages, now considered unnecessary in most contexts including restaurants, fruit and vegetable packing, and mono-use detergents and body lotions supplied by hotels.
Now, aside from the biological plastic percentage that has to be shown on products, manufacturers have to keep a mandatory constituent part in recycled components. The most discussed decision is the compulsory return politics on plastic bottles and aluminium cans. Despite an increase in the efficiency of their recycling, the return to reuse policy represents a problem for the entire sector of traditional recycling activities.
Share This Post On
0 comments
Leave a comment
You need to login to leave a comment. Log-in
