BBIA will be hosting a free webinar on Tuesday 16th June 2020 at 2-3pm examining the Italian model for an extended producer responsibility scheme for compostable packaging. 

In May 2020 the Italian Minister of Environment Sergio Costa announced his approval of the new programme for the management of compostable packaging, EN 13432 compliant,  under the Extended Producer Responsibility laws.  The programme, known as Biorepak, will be within the national EPR scheme for packaging managed by a joint Government – business consortium known as CONAI, the National Consortium for Packaging.

Biorepak will be financed by EPR contributions from producers, transformers and distributors of compostable packaging. An estimated €20 million will be contributed to the scheme in the first year representing the EPR value of around 100,000 tons of compostable packaging sold into the Italian market. These funds will then be distributed by Biorepak back into the system for the management of compostable packaging with food and garden waste, notably to composting and anaerobic digestion plants. A part of the funds will be used for communications to help councils with poor quality or low volume food waste collections improve their performance as well as to monitoring and measuring the system through the Italian Composting Association (CIC).  This will be the world’s first such scheme and whilst it has yet to be up and running we will look at the model that has been approved.

We are pleased to have speaking Mariagiovanna Vetere who is the Global Public Affairs Director of compostable resin producer Natureworks, a BBIA member.  In her previous role, Mariagiovanna was for 15 years International Relations Manager of the Italian plastic waste EPR scheme known as COREPLA under the CONAI consortium and therefore is uniquely placed to illustrate what such a system would entail and the opportunities for the UK too, as we review and revise our legislation around EPR.

With us will be Robbie Staniforth, Policy Director for Ecosurety, a leading UK company managing the UK PRNs and a respected voice in the discussions about how a revised UK EPR system could look like.

Ample time will be given for Q&As from the audience.

Chair: David Newman, Managing Director BBIA

Speakers: Mariagiovanna Vetere, Robbie Staniforth

Participation is free and you can register to join the webinar here