EUROPEN, the EU Organisation for Packaging & the Environment, has issued a warning against the growing trend of governments to impose "stealth" taxes on packaging, designed to fill holes in their national budgets, & has urged them to stop hiding tax-raising measures behind environmental rhetoric. In its new publication, Economic Instruments in Packaging & Packaging Waste, EUROPEN makes the point that the packaging & packaged goods industry has done everything the legislators have asked of it & is now doing more. "In 2004,(most recent year with complete set of official data), the overall recovery rate in the 15 "old" Member States was 68% & overall recycling rate 56%" said EUROPEN MD Julian Carroll. "These figures go well beyond the minimum rates which the Packaging & Packaging Waste Directive prescribed for 2001 & already exceed 2008 targets set for the 12 front-runners.
