General Association of the Plastics Processing Industry (GKV)
The Gesamtverband Kunststoffverarbeitende Industrie e.V. (GKV) welcomes the adoption of the National Circular Economy Strategy (NKWS) by the Federal Cabinet today.
The GKV welcomes the fact that, with the NKWS, the Federal Government is for the first time presenting a coherent strategy for Germany’s path to a circular economy, which was developed by the Federal Ministry for the Environment together with industry. “The National Circular Economy Strategy recognizes the great social benefits of plastics and shows how the plastics value chain can become more circular. The NKWS contains a number of proposals that are worth supporting,” says GKV Managing Director Dr. Oliver Möllenstädt.
Among other things, the German government wants to examine the introduction of a certificate trading system for plastic recyclates at EU level. This would allow companies that exceed their targets for the use of recyclates to sell certificates to companies for which the switch to secondary materials is associated with higher costs. In this way, recyclate use quotas under the EU Packaging Regulation for contact-sensitive packaging in particular could be achieved efficiently.
“Certificate trading can significantly reduce the costs of transformation and accelerate the replacement of fossil raw materials. It is therefore a good signal for the economy and the environment that the German government wants to examine the potential of this instrument,” comments Dr. Isabell Schmidt, Managing Director of the Circular Economy at IK Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen, the supporting association of the GKV.
The GKV also supports the German government in its efforts to advocate the introduction of polymer-specific substitution quotas at European Union level as a sensible addition to product-related recyclate use quotas.
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