Germany | The German government is planning to do away with the ‘Gruener Punkt’ (‘Green Point’) system because it represents a waste management monopoly that is keeping prices high, according to Germany’s Capital magazine which cites an internal report commissioned by Economy Minister Michael Glos.
Duales System Germany, which holds the ‘Gruener Punkt’ licence, has created the most expensive waste management option with costs running at Euro 1300 per tonne, says the magazine. The figure is 13 times greater than a ‘high-value thermic utilisation’ in modern waste-fuelled power stations, thus making the ‘Gruener Punkt’ system ‘economically and ecologically out-of-date’, it adds.
Instead, the German government envisions communal waste management companies picking up plastics and packaging from consumers and passing them on to private companies for sorting, it continues. The switch could be financed through a fund supported by producers of consumer goods and by retailers, it says.
