In March 2019, European Parliament approved a new law banning single-use plastic items such as plates, cutlery, straws and cotton buds sticks. On 3 July 2021, the ban of certain single-use plastic products enters into force. Frederique RIES (Renew, BE), rapporteur in 2019 of the EP Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) gives a statement on the different measures becoming law.

Brussels

statement

Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

plastic waste (T)

reduction of the environmental impact of plastics (T)

End of single use plastics: statement by the rapporteur of the EP Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

SOUNDBITE (French), Fr&#233;d&#233;rique RIES (Renew, BE), Rapporteur, I would like to tell you that everything will change in what concerns single-use plastics, and a lot will change. A whole series of products will be banned, these famous single-use plastics that we have been mentioning so often when we have worked on this European directive, which are, of course, the plastic straws. There has been a lot of discussion about the plastic straws but now they will be banned. We will not be able to produce them, to buy them, we will not be able to export them, we will not be able to import them anymore. There will be no more. Normally, there is a small latency period for emptying the stocks and they will still be allowed for 12 months. But these products will be unavailable.

SOUNDBITE (French), Fr&#233;d&#233;rique RIES (Renew, BE), Rapporteur, All the plastic cuterly: plates, knives, forks, the coffee mixer, balloon sticks as well, Q-tips. And then, these famous oxo degradable plastic bags, it is a bit complicated word, simply to say that they only have a degradable name. It makes a kind of slime soup in the ocean which is toxic, such as the degradation of singal plastics and also food and beverage containers made of expanded polystyrene which it is this kind of light frigolite, a lot used in fast food. All this will be banned in Europe from July the 3rd.

SOUNDBITE (French), Fr&#233;d&#233;rique RIES (Renew, BE), Rapporteur, This was obviously the main purpose of our reflections. We did not want to ban products without proposing an accessible, available and especially not too expensive alternative.

SOUNDBITE (French), Fr&#233;d&#233;rique RIES (Renew, BE), Rapporteur, I took this MUG. Why the MUG? Because is the best alternative to plastic today, which is exploding everywhere in the world and far beyond Europe. Europe is not the main producer of plastic and the best alternative is not to use this single plastics.

SOUNDBITE (French), Fr&#233;d&#233;rique RIES (Renew, BE), Rapporteur, This is bamboo, it's the famous bamboo cutlery but there are a lot of possible alternatives. What I would like to add is that we talk about what are the alternatives to products that have been banned but there all the other products that are actually the main polluting objects found on our beaches, like bottles or cigarettes, tobacco pollutes enormously firstly the lungs of smokers, but also our oceans. And that there, indeed, we have a whole series of other measures which are essential objectives in reducing our consumption.

SOUNDBITE (French), Fr&#233;d&#233;rique RIES (Renew, BE), Rapporteur, I dream of a global consensus to have real results. I hope that in Europe and on our European beaches, all this mixed plastic products that pollute, unfortunately, on a global scale, will reduce very fast and that the next time we will do statistics of polluting objects, especially those that are banned today, well we will be able to see an important decrease in all objects.

Extracts from the vote of the report on the reduction of the impact of certain plastic products on the environment (2019): 560 votes in favour, 35 against and 28 abstentions.