European Citizens’ Initiative: Commission decides to register ‘ReturnthePlastics’ initiative on plastic bottle recycling

Today, the Commission decided to register a European Citizens’ Initiative entitled ‘ReturnthePlastics: A Citizen’s Initiative to implement an EU-wide deposit-system to recycle plastic bottles’.

The organisers of the initiative call on the Commission to present a proposal to:

implement an EU-wide deposit-system to recycle plastic bottles,
incentivise all EU Member States that supermarkets (chains) which are selling plastic bottles install reverse vending machines for recycling the plastic bottles after being purchased and used by the consumer, and
make the plastic bottle producing companies pay plastic taxes for the recycling and deposit-system of the plastic bottles (under the principle that the polluter should pay).
The Commission considers that this initiative is legally admissible because it meets the necessary conditions. At this stage, the Commission has not analysed the substance of the initiative.