Paper or plastic — let’s choose wisely

Heading into an election year politically dominated by stubborn inflation, regional conflicts and a worsening climate crisis, Europe faces many important decisions. One such decision will be made by members of the European Parliament next week when they vote on the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), a key element of the Von Der Leyen Commission’s Green New Deal agenda.            

The PPWR plenary vote represents not just one more procedural step in a legislative process, but a pivotal chance to put science and common sense at the heart of Europe’s circular economy. Make the right decision, and MEPs will boost Europe’s strategic autonomy and economic resilience while meaningfully strengthening its green credentials. Make the wrong decision and we will go backwards on all these fronts, while the tide of plastic pollution across the Continent swells.

Plastic planet

The Commission’s current proposal, inter alia, would force restaurant owners to replace certified renewable and recyclable paper packaging with fossil-based and nonrecyclable reusable alternatives. The data shows however that the PPWR proposal would cause a sharp increase, by as much as 1,500 percent, in the use of rigid plastic packaging in the foodservice or hotel, restaurant and catering sector.

In France, for instance, where quick service restaurants were banned from using single-use  paper packaging almost a year ago, most of them have turned to Tritan plastic — a sturdy polymer that currently has a rotation rate of up to 29 washing cycles.

Like most conventional packaging plastics, Tritan is a fossil-fuel product and consumes huge amounts of energy in the production process. However, it is also not recycled. So, while no doubt drafted with good intentions, the new law is guaranteed to increase plastic pollution — bad news for France’s wildlife, waterways, beaches and streets.

With all MEPs gearing up for the plenary vote, we urge them to align with science-based policies.

What is more, preliminary findings from leading restaurant chains suggest that the actual reuse rate of the new products has significantly underperformed against projections, with a 15 percent loss rate and items frequently being discarded after merely six uses.

By contrast, single-use paper packaging — sourced from certified sustainably-managed forests — stands as a renewable alternative that aids in carbon capture. It is also recycled at the highest rate of all packaging materials (82.5 percent on average across Europe, per the latest Eurostat figures), with paper fibers that can be reused up to 25 times.

A Ramboll life cycle assessment highlights that, within dine-in settings, single-use paper packaging produces 2.8 times less CO2 and requires 3.4 times less freshwater than its reusable counterparts, even under conservative use estimates. When factoring in real-world data from France, the environmental benefits of paper packaging become even more pronounced.

Renewable and recycled

Such data underscore the importance of basing packaging legislation on independent scientific research.

The European Commission’s proposal leans on an impact assessment by consulting firm Eunomia, which, despite its claim to neutrality, overlooked substantial third-party scientific data on the environmental, economic, and health and safety repercussions, leading to a skewed perspective. It’s disconcerting that, based on this assessment, the European Parliament’s Environment Committee recently narrowly missed an opportunity to eliminate the reusable targets for dine-in settings from their proposed draft.

With all MEPs gearing up for the plenary vote, we urge them to align with science-based policies. Reuse and recycling should be evaluated on their environmental merits through their life cycle impacts, ensuring that the approach benefits the environment, economy, and strategic autonomy.

This means standing for a version of the PPWR that supports the best environmental solution and doesn’t ban renewable, recyclable and performant paper-based packaging.

Europe has pioneered the world’s leading circular economy over the past three decades, with paper packaging playing a crucial role as a recyclable, renewable and sustainable cornerstone. Current iterations of the PPWR threaten this progress, with a potential ban on single-use paper packaging disrupting recycling chains and setting back the greening of critical sectors, including agri-food and pharmaceutical industries.

Choices and supply chains

Recent crises have brought Europe’s need for security and stability to the forefront. It is worrying that the current PPWR proposal will exacerbate this uncertainty by undermining a fully European supply chain with industries that are central to our strategic self-reliance and circular economy.

After all, defending the European fiber industry translates into more than curbing plastic production and saving energy and water; it’s also about preserving a sector that sustains 647,000 jobs across critical sectors from forestry to manufacturing to services to recycling. This supply chain is incredibly productive but it is also fragile — circular economy systems refined over decades are at risk of being undermined at the stroke of a pen because nobody will invest in renewable forestry and recycling infrastructure if the pitch is tilted against paper packaging.

As MEPs approach the decisive plenary vote on the PPWR, we urge them to choose the environmentally-responsible path that conserves finite resources, mitigates climate change and protects strategic industry and innovation. Concretely, this means standing for a version of the PPWR that supports the best environmental solution and doesn’t ban renewable, recyclable and performant paper-based packaging.

Choosing reusable over recyclable means definitively choosing plastic over paper. Can that really be the right choice?