The topics of recycling, circular economy, and product responsibility are steadily gaining in significance both in Germany and at European level. The AGVU has been closely involved in the legislative process – for example, in the context of the German Packaging Act or the European Circular Economy Package – as well as in the scientific and technical debates for over 30 years with high commitment.
The AGVU is convinced that a citizen-wide, uniform and broad collection of recyclable materials as well as ambitious recycling targets are decisive steps towards more resource conservation and climate protection. In order to further increase the recycling capacity, the link between producer responsibility and terms of success must be further strengthened. Not only the collection, sorting and recycling technologies but also the packaging design determine the quality of the recovered secondary raw materials. Therefore, incentives are essential for a more voluntary, recycling-friendly product and packaging design as well as for high-quality recycling.
Demanding recycling requirements are also of importance to the improvement of entire system’s resource efficency. More recyclable material must be collected and fed into a high-quality recycling process. Ambitious requirements provide an impetus for the progressive innovation of the circular economy.
The AGVU deals with the legislative processes in the context of the circular economy with a regularly meeting task force.