Austria’s leading packaging collection system Altstoff Recycling Austria (ARA, Vienna; www.ara.at) plans to substantially increase license rates for plastic packaging next year. The company has announced an increase of 3.3% from 1 January 2018. The reasons ARA director Christoph Scharff cited were, among other things, China’s import ban on plastics waste, which has led to massive stockpiling and a revenue slump on European plastics recycling markets (see Plasteurope.com of 26.07.2017 and 27.09.2017).

For most other packaging types, ARA is instead decreasing its fees: glass will go down by 3.6% and iron by 1.8%. Paper packaging licensing fees had already gone down by 13% since 1 July 2017 due to a positive market development, and remain unchanged.