Dear Members of the European Parliament,
Dear Representatives of the Council of the European Union,
Dear Representatives of the European Commission,

Ahead of your meeting on 4 March, where you intend to reach an agreement on the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), we urge you to agree to ambitious measures to reduce the amount of problematic, avoidable, and unnecessary single-use packaging in the EU.

We would like to reiterate our strong support for an EU-wide restriction of single-use packaging in the HORECA sector for customers who dine in. We hope that negotiators can agree to the proposals in this regard made by the European Commission in November 2022 and endorsed by the Council’s General Approach of December 2023. Please support Art. 22 together with points 3 and 4 of Annex V (“Restrictions on Use of Packaging Formats”).

The types of single-use packaging covered under these points fulfil all the criteria to be restricted:

• • They are problematic: most single-use packaging used in the HORECA sector is difficult to recycle after use and contact with food, and is often not recycled or downcycled¹.
  • They are unnecessary and avoidable: most operators in the HORECA sector offer reusable tableware to customers dining in; single-use packaging can clearly be avoided by adopting suitable operating procedures.

We would also like to draw your attention to the EU Joint Research Centre’s recent study², which assessed the environmental performance of single-use (SU) and multiple-use (MU) packaging in a dine-in restaurant case study and found that “the ‘Restaurant Scenario’ resulted in lower impacts for the MU packaging in the majority of impact categories and simulations.” This illustrative example is in line with many other life-cycle assessments and demonstrates the clear benefits of restricting single-use packaging for dine-in.

To conclude, we remind you that the EU is part of the high-ambition coalition to negotiate a global treaty to eliminate plastic pollution. In the ongoing negotiations, the EU and its Member States argue for ambitious restrictions of problematic, avoidable, and unnecessary single-use plastics. On 4 March, you have the opportunity to adopt such measures for the EU and send out a strong signal to other regions of the world. Push back against the throwaway culture and prevent unnecessary waste!