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Garbage can in Stuttgart (symbolic photo): plastic producers should bear part of the disposal costs in the future
Photo: IMAGO/Arnulf Hettrich
In order to relieve the financial burden on cities and communities when it comes to cleaning streets and parks, the Bundestag has decided on a special levy for products made of single-use plastic.
With the law passed on Thursday evening, the manufacturers of certain beverage cups, food packaging or cigarettes will have to pay into a state fund in the future and thus contribute to the costs of disposing of discarded coffee cups and bags of chips.
From 2025, plastic manufacturers are to pay into the fund managed by the Federal Environment Agency, and from 2026 manufacturers of fireworks too.
The more plastic manufacturers put on the market, the more they have to pay.
The levy is based on the amount of the previous year.
A total of 400 million euros should flow into the coffers of the municipalities every year.
The traffic light factions approved the draft law, the opposition factions CDU/CSU, AfD and Linke voted against it.
The plastic levy still has to pass the Federal Council.
Call for a levy on chewing gum and pizza boxes
According to their own statements, the cities and municipalities in Germany pay hundreds of millions of euros every year to remove single-use plastic from the cityscape and empty public waste bins.
The regulation therefore does not go far enough for the association of municipal companies (VKU).
"In the future, chewing gum, pizza boxes and aluminum trays should also be included in the manufacturer financing of municipal cleaning services," said VKU Vice President Patrick Hasenkamp.
The economy, on the other hand, fears unnecessary burdens.
Politicians must "show now that the actual design for the affected sectors is cost-efficient and fair," said Antje Gerstein, the managing director of the German trade association responsible for sustainability, of the dpa news agency.
The German Association of Cities, on the other hand, like the VKU, called for an expansion.
"Whether the disposable waste is made of plastic, cardboard or aluminum makes no difference to the effort and costs of cleaning," said Managing Director Helmut Dedy of the editorial network Germany.
For the environmental policy spokesman for the Greens group, Jan-Niclas Gesenhues, the law is only a first step.
During the final debate in the Bundestag, he expressed the hope that "many further steps will follow in order to implement a real circular economy".
The law stems from a 2019 EU directive against single-use plastic pollution.
EU regulations explicitly give member states the option to hold plastic product manufacturers accountable.
The former Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) had already announced at the time that she would make use of it.
kfr/dpa/AFP