EU Commission Published Delegated Legal Act
At the end of July, the EU Commission published its delegated act to concretise the taxonomy regulation which was approved in principle at the middle of the same month.
Diana Butron
This legislation establishes criteria for economic activities incentivising voluntary investment into areas that could significantly contribute to the implementation of one or more EU environmental objectives.
The four objectives officially published are: transition to a circular economy, prevention and control of pollution, sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources and the protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems. The activities and areas included are waste management, contaminated site restoration, production of plastic packaging, electrical and electronic equipment and portable batteries, and construction and demolition work.
In comparison to the 2021 criteria regarding environmental objective of climate protection and adaptation to climate change this year's updated version includes new activities. The new activities include vehicle and aircraft construction, electricity transmission and distribution, seawater desalination, and disaster control.
Although waste incineration plants and suppliers have worked to include waste incineration in the taxonomy for some time it has not been included, making no difference between chemical and mechanical plastic recycling.
Regarding plastic packaging materials the new regulation in comparison to the draft published for consultation it now defines two steps for the minimum recyclate content of packaging by 2028:
1) Non-contact-sensitive packaging should contain at least 35% of recycled post-consumer waste material.
2) Contact-sensitive packaging should contain at least 10% of recycled post-consumer waste material.
This means that from 2028 these values rise 65 of 50%. In addition, the minimum of recyclate content now also applies to plastic packaging intended for use in a reusable system.
A period of four months, with a possibility of extension of maximum two months is given for the examination by the European Parliament and Council. After this time, if neither of these institution objects to the regulation, it would be adopted and published in the EU Official Journal; being valid from the 1st of January 2024.
The new EU Commission delegated regulations published the 27th of June can be found here, available in many languages.
References
EUWID - www.euwid-recycling.de/news/politik/neue-taxonomie-kriterien-offiziell-veroeffentlicht/
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