More than 100 guests from the German Bundestag, federal ministries, industry and associations followed the invitation of the GKV to the parliamentary evening to exchange information and networking. Roland Straßburger, Vice President of the GKV, welcomed the guests in the DZ Bank building at Pariser Platz. The Initiative Erntekunststoffe Recycling Deutschland (ERDE) handed over a voluntary commitment to new collection and recycling targets to the Federal Ministry for the Environment (photo). According to ERDE, it has set itself the goal of increasing the quota for the collection and recycling of films used in agriculture to 50 percent by 2021 and to 65 percent by 2022. As ERDE and IK Managing Director Jürgen Bruder explained the goals of the initiative are that all harvesting plastics are to be collected and recycled in order to close the cycle and prevent plastics from entering the soil and the environment. At 13,433 tons, the quota last year was 25 percent. According to the Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen (IK), which co-signed the ERDE Initiative together with the German Raiffeisenverband, the Bundesverband Agrarhandel and the Bundesverband Lohnunternehmen, around 70 percent of the agricultural films collected were recycled in Germany, the rest in other European countries. According to ERDE, the take-back system will also be extended to asparagus foil, round bale nets, compressed yarns and mulch foil. New agricultural and construction films, irrigation tubes and garbage bags are produced from the used films.
Photo (from left to right): Dr. Jürgen Bruder, Managing Director of IK Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen and Managing Director of ERDE, Dr. Regina Dube, Head of Department at the Federal Environment Ministry and Roland Straßburger, Vice President of GKV and President of IK Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen.
More information: www.gkv.de, www.erde-recycling.de
Sources:
- kiweb.de (28.6.2018)
- Euwid Recycling and Waste Management 27/2019 (2.7.2019)
- Photo: GKV