EU Commission Considers Ban on Plastic Packaging: Die Welt

The EU Commission is evaluating a ban on plastic packaging and setting new requirements for manufacturers, EU Commissioner-designate for environment and the oceans Virginijus Sinkevicius said in an interview with German newspaper Die Welt.

“We definitely want to expand the rules for single-use plastics and are currently investigating in which direction it would be possible,” he was quoted as saying. “An important step would be, for example, to ban plastic packaging or to prescribe the use of recycled plastic.”

The new EU regulation on single-use plastics threatens a market in excess of $10 billion, with polypropylene and polystyrene being the plastics most exposed, BloombergNEF estimates.Adopted last year, the Single-Use Plastics Directive bans plastic products such as cutlery, stirrers, straws, cotton bud sticks and some polystyrene containers.

The EU Commission is also investigating how manufacturers of products such as tires or cosmetics could be obliged to dramatically reduce the microplastic of their products.