It included speakers such as Kestutis Sadauskas, the Director in charge of Circular Economy and Green Growth at the European Commission, as well as Laurent Thieule, Director at the Committee of the Regions, who applauded the project’s practical nature and its “on the ground” applicability for European regions.
The project brought together nineteen partners across the value chain from several European countries including those with low recycling rates such as Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. The project offered them a unique platform to find ways to increase separate collection of paper in the EU. “This project could not be more timely, as the inter-institutional agreement on the revision of the waste package last December has indeed strengthened separate collection” said Mr. Sadauskas, adding that “separate collection for high quality recycling is particularly important in light of China’s waste import ban”.
Sylvain Lhôte, Director General of the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) closed the conference by focusing on the project’s major policy recommendations. He highlighted the Commission’s detailed Guidance on the newly strengthened rules on separate collection in the Waste Directive and the need for collection systems to take into account the EN 643 standard. “In the fight against climate change, we only have a window of a few years to optimise waste management and recycling everywhere in Europe” he noted.
