S-Tiles - law corner

LAW CORNER

UNITED NATIONS - The UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection were adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1985, and expanded in 1999 to include Section G, “Promotion of Sustainable Consumption” (UN Assembly Decision 54/449).

UNEP- DTIE and Consumers International (CI) joined in partnership in 2001 to conduct a global status survey (“Tracking Progress: Implementing Sustainable Consumption Policies”) to find out to what extent governments were aware of the SC section of the UN Consumer Guidelines, and what they had done to date to incorporate them into their national policy frameworks.

EUROPEAN UNION - Eco-label: established by Regulation (EEC) 880/92, and revised by Regulation EC 1980/2000.

Decision 2002/272/EC of 25 March 2002 established the ecological criteria for the award of the Community eco-label to hard floor-coverings, among which are ceramic tiles.

Directive 94/62/EC on Packaging Waste of 20 December 1994. Packaging waste is responsible for up to 40% of all household refuse. The Directive requires Member States to reduce their packaging waste, to recover between 50% and 65% of the total weight of all packaging waste and to recycle between 25% and 45% of the recovered packaging waste, with a minimum of 15% per material by June 2001.

Another initiative worth mentioning is the work currently undertaken by the EU on establishing an INTEGRATED PRODUCT POLICY (IPP) COM/2001/68 final. Rather than focusing on one aspect of the product such as its manufacturing or disposal, IPP is intended to be applied to the whole life cycle of the product with the aim of reducing its environmental impact.