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European Commission revises its Circular Economy Package to assist remanufacturing

The European Commission has revised its new Circular Economy Package in a way that will particularly benefit the remanufacturing industry.

As the APSRG explains:

“The long-awaited document, ‘Closing the loop – an EU action plan for the Circular Economy’, recognises the opportunities that moving towards a circular economy can provide both socially and environmentally. Whilst focusing on some general aspects of our economy, such as product design and the role that both producers and consumers can have in this transition, the revised package also addresses the following sectors or issues more specifically: plastics, food waste, critical raw materials, biomass, and industrial and mining waste.

The Commission will revise legislative proposals on waste to establish more harmonised rules to determine when a secondary raw material should no longer be legally considered as ‘waste’ by clarifying existing rules on ‘end-of-waste’. This will provide operators with more certainty and a level playing field. As identified in the APSRG report Triple Win (2014), this will have a significant and positive impact on the remanufacturing industry. Products with potential to be remanufactured are often classified as waste, resulting in some remanufacturers being unable to use or access these products for remanufacture due to permitting reasons. These revisions should overcome this issue.”

See the European Commission’s press release for more details.