[GreenYes] European/German Recycling Situation

["Peter Anderson" <anderson@recycleworlds.org>]

According to the May 2001 Modern Plastics ("Politics of Plastic: Requires Active Trade Group"), the German plastics trade group leaders, Peter Orth and Ingo Sarorius, made the following observations:

    >The fact that the EU presidency changes every six months has made it difficult to establish long term relationships by the trade association

    >They feel that efforts to discourage hard-to-recycle plastics in electric appliances is misplaced because only 10% of total energy is used in manufacture and recycling -- the rest is used by the appliance itself which is where efficiency efforts should be focused, not end of life concerns

    >German packaging legislation has hindered PET inroads into glass by placing hurdles on one way containers. Glass is still widely used in packaging in Germany.

    >Efforts continue to gain acceptance of degradable plastics packaging that could be placed in containers for organic material going to composting.

                                                        Peter
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Peter Anderson
RECYCLEWORLDS CONSULTING
4513 Vernon Blvd. Suite 15
Madison, WI 53705
(608) 231-1100/Fax (608) 233-0011
email: anderson@recycleworlds.org
web: www.recycleworlds.org