International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

the sale of water in glass bottles dropped by almost one percent; for soft drinks, the
reduction was half of one percent, indicating a marginal impact.
30.5.1.2 Choice of the Submitted Products
An environmental rationale for the choice of product subject to an ecotax is not
always clear. As explained above, the introduction of the ecotaxes has known a rather
turbulent legislative history, where competing interests and changing political
configurations have played an important role. The products submitted to the ecotax
tended to be rather visible, mainly household or consumer oriented products, usually
linked to a well known waste issue. They do correspond, in large part, with the waste
types that were defined as priority waste streams in the process of the fifth
environmental action programme. The result is a set of waste streams subject to the
ecotax for which also European legislation, and especially EPR mechanisms, have
been established later (such as packaging and packaging waste and batteries). A
more scientific approach, with an exercise to prioritise waste streams in respect of
environmental impact, could be useful either in the definition of waste streams for
which a take-back obligation should be implemented, or for which an ecotax would be
beneficial.
30.5.1.3 Sales Evolution of Products Submitted to Ecotaxes
It is statistically not possible to prove a relationship between sales figures of products
and the effects of the introduction of ecotaxes. However, some trends can be
observed in which the ecotax might have played a role.
FOST-Plus shows that the quantity of single use packaging is still increasing, but
suggests that a decoupling between this increase and the growth in the economy has
taken place between 1995 and 2006. Figure 30-1 shows that the amount of single
use packaging increased in the Belgian market by 55, 000 tonnes over this period. A
large part of the single use household packaging consists of beverage packaging
submitted to ecotax. An important year is 2004, when the exemption from ecotax for
beverage packaging was abolished. This coincides with the stabilisation of the market
of single use packaging (see Figure 30-1), though this does not necessarily prove a
causal relationship between the two. It might simply suggest some support for any
ongoing measures to encourage use of reusable packaging.
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