Parliament maintained at second reading the essential elements of its philosophy in the area of packaging waste, and stated that the best way of preventing the production of packaging waste was to reduce the overall volume of packaging, which was a vital condition for sustainable development.
In its 18 amendments to the Council's common position, Parliament extended the definition of packaging to include all items used for the containment and protection of goods. It encouraged reusing packaging, including the use of auxiliary products enabling packaging to be refilled.
Landfill would not be considered a form of organic recycling.
The public authorities and statutory organisations were added to the list of economic operators involved and a definition of voluntary agreements was introduced as a form of cooperation. Parliament called for the harmonisation of the databases which should also include information on the toxic or dangerous nature of materials. In this respect, the Member States were required to ensure that the economic operators provided reliable data in this field.
Parliament also hoped that the procedure laid down to determine the objectives at the end of the first phase would be repeated every five years.
Finally, with regard to the adoption of economic instruments to facilitate the implementation of this directive (at Community level or, by default, at Member State level), the European Parliament laid down the following conditions: respect for the principle of the polluter pays, no distortion to competition, no obstacles to the free movement of goods and no discrimination against imported products.
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