German “plastic tax” on non-recycled packaging expected in January 2025

The “plastic tax” planned by the German government will not be introduced until 2025. A delay in the introduction of the charge for unrecycled plastic waste would be necessary in order to gain more time “to work out an efficient solution with as little bureaucracy as possible”, explained government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit in Berlin at the beginning of January. As part of the budget negotiations in December, Germany’s coalition government had agreed in principle to ensure that manufacturers and distributors are to fund the national contribution to the EU budget of €800 per tonne of non-recycled plastic packaging waste, rather than to continue to fund it from general tax revenues. However, the government has not yet put forward a plan for ensuring that the costs, which are estimated at €1.4bn a year, are passed on....