European Union Budget and Human Resources Commissioner Guenther Oettinger has announced plans to impose a tax on plastics as a source of income and an initiative to reduce plastics packaging.
Announcing his budget plans for the year 2019 on Jan. 10, Oettinger said the proposal for the potential tax would be part of a new set of post-Brexit financial instruments, while creating an incentive for reduced packaging in the face of the Chinese waste import ban.
“Since 1 Jan. of this year, China has closed its markets to plastic waste and will no longer accept plastic waste for reprocessing,” Bloomberg quoted Oettinger as saying.
According to the EU commissioner, the move will also help plug a 12 billion to 15 billion euro budget gap, which will be created after the departure of the United Kingdom from the union in March 2019.
The details of the tax will be applied is yet to be decided, according to the European commissioner.