Legislation Measures

The reuse quota should be set at national level in order to create a level playing field within a Member State and to accommodate for different national contexts across the EU. Policies should install a framework and certification for waste management in aquaculture companies (e.g. Including key performance indicators - KPI’s). Decomissioning should be harmonised to avoid unfair competition between Baltic Sea Region countries. Facilitate cross-border partnerships to save costs – for instance to deal with waste of fishing and aquaculture gear. Cross-border activities could result in joint efforts to install a recycling plant for gear and buoys between two or three neighbouring countries or to avoid patchwork approaches of different Member States. Worn out gear and other requipement collection and recycling services should be better promoted, upcycling and repurposing should be financially encouraged by governements. Apply recycling rebates and pay farmers levy when purchasing new nets and get money back when recycling. Encourage farmers to set short, medium objectives to help them reach the “Zero Waste" goal or a positive footprint. The SUPD has to be implemented into national law until 2021: Producers will be responsible to bear the cost for the collection, transport and treatment of gear containing plastic. The costs have to be transparent and reasonable and could be shared in so called PROs. Develop national / Federal State recommendations with clear definitions of a producer; when developing a national / Federal State law to implement the SUPD provisions clearly define who is addressed by the law and differentiate between small and large-scale fisheries. The revision of the PRFD does not focus specifically on ALDFG and there are no direct incentives for fishermen to return ghost gear. In addition, Member States are free to design their national cost-recovery systems. Therefore the discrepancy and confusion of the fishermen has to end. Producers and retailers who want to create new products or plastic granulate from the recycled product have an interest in predictable material flow and qualities for their calculation. Producer could already be interested in implementing a deposit scheme simply related to the material value of the gear. Due to the complexity of active aquaculture/fishing gear like nets (many kinds of materials, individual adaptations during production), the option of a multi-use deposit system seems reasonable only. As active aquaculture gear is assembled, sewed and many times patched by farmers according their needs during many years, a deposit system seems to be practical if the aspect of long-term use has been included – this is also relevant for an ecological assessment. In some areas e.g. for recreational fishing, privately organized deposit systems are already existing and basically conceivable at the local level. Assess whether a deposit scheme or simple return system is better to implement. Tax benefits for reusable systems would also support goals, such as waste prevention, resource conservation, reducing cleaning costs and avoiding the pollution of coasts and beaches regardless of the type of packaging and thus avoid potential conflicts of interest. This could be also achieved by a graded taxation of SUP items or the aquaculture sector although so far this approach is only applied for some kind of food packages. Return systems without deposit collection organized by the business community have already proven themselves in other countries like Iceland. Also, Japan has had established take-back and recycling systems for decades. Develop specific decrees for the aquaculture Extended Producer Responsibility scheme. Put in place new legislation that favours a national strategy with local waste collection and waste managers for specific type of litter Plastic Management Policy: The integration of the management of plastic waste in the company’s policy on reduction of plastic waste is essential (incl. KPIs for implementation)