Politics

| FEAD President Jean-Marc Boursier delivered a speech at the European Commission Reinventing Plastics, Closing the Circle Conference.

| In the light of the current debates and consultations on the upcoming EU Strategy on Plastics and the revision of the EU waste legislation, European Bioplastics (EUBP), the association for the bioplastics industry in Europe, echoes the call for greater investments in the implementation of separate recycling streams, made by the association of Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE) earlier this week.

| ESWET welcomes the Commission’s initiative to create an EU Strategy on Plastics, but claims that in certain cases energy recovery is a better solution due to several recycling constraints.

| The move to a circular economy, one in which materials are kept in the value chain for as long as it makes economic and environmental sense, is expected to take a step forward this autumn as the Prospecting Secondary Raw Materials in the Urban Mine and Mining Wastes (ProSUM) project unveils the first Urban Mine Knowledge Data Platform.

| BIR Director General Arnaud Brunet has addressed an official letter to the World Trade Organisation via the European Commission to request an extension of the deadline for comments in the aforementioned matter so that all stakeholders are given the opportunity to put forward their concerns.

| In a position paper the federation points out that there are severall obstacles to overcome.

| The first draft (D1) of the reference document for best available techniques (BREF) for Waste Incineration (WI) was published on 24th May. On first reading, the Best Available Techniques Associated Emission Levels (BATAELs) proposed in D1 are stricter than the current emission standards for waste-to-energy plants.

| ISWA Stands with the Rest of the World on Climate Change. As Donald Trump pulls the plug on the United States' involvement in the Climate Change Agreement, ISWA President Antonis Mavropoulos makes it very clear that ISWA stands with all the industry and political leaders who have since spoken out against Donald Trump’s dangerous actions. This is an affront to science, our planet and to our future generations.

| Paul Simpson, CEO of CDP, said: “It is regrettable that the US administration has decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, but with or without its involvement global efforts to prevent dangerous climate change will continue to drive forward.

| The European Waste and Resource Management Industry Association FEAD is calling on the Conference on sustainable, innovative and socially responsible public procurement being held in Paris on 2 June to demand European Commission guidelines for Member States to ensure proper implementation of the EU Public Procurement Package.

| Although more than 90 separate pieces of research have concluded no risks are attached to the use of crumb rubber in synthetic turf, the issue “is not going away” and will not do so until “a definitive study” has been published, according to Robin Wiener, President of the US Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries.

| Taking the five- to 10-year view, it was possible that China would decide to stop importing plastic scrap. That was the worst-case scenario presented by the Executive President of the China Scrap Plastics Association - Dr Steve Wong- in light of the country’s National Sword initiative to prohibit imports of any material that could contain contaminants and therefore lead to environmental pollution.

| Manufacturers should receive no exemptions that allow them to market goods containing persistent organic pollutants (POPs) unless they have first made financial provision for end-of-life environmentally sound management (ESM), it is argued in a draft position formulated by BIR and aimed at Parties to the Stockholm Convention on POPs.

| China’s reform of its scrap import regime will have potentially far-reaching consequences for the non-ferrous metals sector, the latest divisional meeting was warned by Ma Hongchang, BIR’s advisor on the country’s policy and regulatory developments. It was even possible, he told delegates in Hong Kong on May 22, that the Chinese government would go as far as to ban imports of certain items of mixed metal scrap.