2023-05-30 08:31:03
Germany’s brewers and beverage manufacturers are appalled.
The EU is planning new rules for deposit systems and packaging. The unbelievable result: BILLIONS of German beer bottles are at risk of being destroyed!
Reason: These would have to be withdrawn from circulation and re-manufactured with an embossed logo and serial number.
Brauerbund boss Holger Eichele (50) to BILD: “If the EU plans become reality, we would have to melt down all returnable bottles. This madness must be prevented.” The project was “well intentioned, but badly done”. “A uniform law will be imposed on Europe” because some countries, unlike Germany, have not yet had a reusable system. The German deposit system is “unique in Europe and environmentally friendly”.
Eichele: “80 percent of the beer in Germany is sold in returnable bottles. We operate the largest and most successful reusable system in Europe. It would be a disaster if the EU destroyed that.”
The German Brewers’ Association spread a fire letter, writing: “We appeal to refrain from anything that endangers the existence of successful existing systems.”
“Ecological and economic madness”
Dirk Reinsberg (52), Executive Director of the Federal Association of German Beverage Wholesalers, also warns: “The plans are ecological and economic madness!”
On top of that. Even beer crates would have to be shredded and redesigned. One reason: From the point of view of the EU bureaucrats, a German beer crate contains too much air. Reinsberg: “The EU plan requires that the transport packaging of a product is no more than 40 percent larger than the product itself. In the case of beer, this would mean that the classic German beer crate would have to be shredded and destroyed. ”
How a new beer crate should be created is “completely unclear”. The German beer crates have proven themselves over decades. “There are boxes that have been in circulation for over 15 years, everything works. These would have to be destroyed,” said Reinsberg.
his demand: “If the EU wants more reusables, it must not throw successful and well-functioning reusable systems overboard!” For the existing deposit systems, “an exceptional permit” is needed.
The plan to create deposit systems in countries that previously had no deposit systems made sense. “But not in a way that puts successful systems on the brink and produces tons of waste.”
Appropriate exemptions are required. “Then the existing German beer bottles and beer crates might be used for years or even decades, depending on their purpose.”
Background: The planned European Packaging Regulation (PPWR) aims to reduce packaging waste. “We see the positive approach that the EU Commission is pursuing with its draft regulation,” says a letter from the associations to the European Parliament, which is to discuss the EU Commission’s proposals.
However, this should prescribe a “centralistic administrative bureaucracy” and a large number of questionable regulations should be imposed. The complicated set of rules would involve billions in investments for the circular economy in Germany without offering any ecological added value. Functioning reusable circuits would be destroyed.
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