Mr. Jean-Pierre Schweitzer:

I think DRS is very good, even if just for single use. Many European member states have realised that it is very difficult, nearly impossible, to reach the 90% collection target for these kinds of products without DRS. DRS ensures that you have a quality waste so that quality plastics like PET are not mixed with other materials and it means that you can have quite high quality PET recycling. There is definitely a benefit and I do not want to criticise it. What I was saying is that it will not go beyond this and we will not reach the reuse for these systems unless that is pursued.

On competition, I will not criticise the companies but it is well-known that the main market is based on selling printers and very expensive cartridges and that the cartridges have chips, that mean where there used to be a high street trade in refilling the cartridges, this no longer exists and the cartridges are sold to consumers at a very high price. I can share the decision by the Italian competition authority with the Deputy but it is up to the committee to investigate this kind of practice. It exists in other sectors as well. I am happy to share the information with the Deputy.

On polystyrene, I know one company that makes reusable packaging for white goods but they remain very niche in the market. I think it is quite a challenging sector because the goods are very heavy and have to be stacked but there are reusable alternatives. My colleagues working on chemicals are very much in favour of banning polystyrene because from a chemicals perspective, it is quite problematic-acting material.