According to the estimations[1] available, 14 million tonnes of litter are collected from the streets of Europe annually, imposing costs of up to EUR 13 billion per year for cleaning it up. Moreover, a study[2] published in Germany, a country with approximately 83 million inhabitants, reveals that cleaning up and disposing of cigarette butts, plastic cups and other single-use plastic products left in parks and streets cost German cities and communities around 700 million EUR annually. Different countries engage different scope of resources to tackle the issue of littering, as its scope depends highly on population awareness and waste management strategies within every respective country. Tackling littering holds a growing place in the EU agenda.
The Directive 2019/904 on the reduction of the impact of certain plastic products on the environment (the Single-Use Plastic or SUP Directive), adopted in 2019, is one of the elements of the EU Plastics Strategy. Among other measures, it tackles the issue of littering by including littering costs in the costs that should be covered by EPR. But the Directive gives no indication on how those costs are to be calculated, or which data calculation methodology should be put in place.
To discuss these issues and more, the EPR Club Secretariat, supported by CITEO, INTERAFVAL and ALU, organised on 4 April 2022 an EPR Club Lunch Debate entitled “Data Collection on Costs of Littering and (Anti)littering Strategies as a Part of EPR Schemes”. Gathering representatives of various stakeholders to share their positions, experiences and questions, the debate provided an opportunity for interactive discussion on the role of the EPR schemes in tackling the problem of littering.
Note that this event was open only to EPR Club and ACR+ members.
[1] http://www.europeancleaningjournal.com/magazine/april-may-2016/latest-news/littering-our-dirty-europe; https://cleaneuropenetwork.eu/en/facts-and-costs/aup/
[2] https://www.politico.eu/article/plastic-and-cigarette-litter-costs-german-towns-e700m-a-year/
Event Overview
- Agenda
Concept note
- Data Collection on Costs of Littering and (Anti)littering Strategies as a Part of EPR Schemes
Recording
- Recording of the event
Presentations
- CITEO actions to tackle litter pollution: from packaging reduction to littering prevention?
- Limpeza Urbana
- VVSG - Littering: the perspective of local governments in Flanders