CEPI claims that the European Commission proposal on End-of-Waste (EoW) criteria for paper fails to address the objectives of increasing the quality and availability of paper for recycling and will have an adverse impact on making Europe a resource efficient recycling society.

Europeans are champions in paper recycling - but for how long? In 2012, 71.7% of paper consumed in Europe was recycled. Used paper has become the single most important raw material for the European paper industry with some mills being completely reliant on it for their feedstock. The Commission proposal threatens Europe’s ability to maintain its recycling rates for paper, let alone improve them.

The European Commission’s End-of-Waste criteria for paper move the recycling and EoW point from its current location at the paper mill to an earlier stage in the collection. CEPI fears that as a result of this move ‘recycled paper’ will be unusable without further reprocessing.