Apparently, “no” really means “no” with respect to Remondis’ (Lünen / Germany; www.remondis.de) takeover of Duales System Holding (DSD; Cologne / Germany; www.gruener-punkt.de) – see Plasteurope.com of 24.04.2019. Even after the recycling company made concessions to the Bundeskartellamt (Germany’s antitrust authority), such as leaving sorting capacities for lightweight packaging to the competition for a certain time, the German cartel office did not alter its decision. The proposed measures were “unsuitable for averting a prohibition of the merger,” the office pointed out in a letter to Remondis available to news agency DPA. The cartel office told Plasteurope.com that a final decision has not yet been taken and that a date for this decision has currently not been set.

Instead, the Bundeskartellamt has extended the deadline for its decision by one month. This means that the decision should be announced by the end of July 2019 at the latest.

The market for lightweight packaging recycling in Germany is currently in a state of flux. After Recycling Kontor (RKD; Cologne; www.recycling-kontor.koeln) withdrew as a DSD provider at the end of the first quarter of 2019, the second quarter inevitably saw a shift in the market shares of the remaining lightweight packaging providers. According to figures from the central packaging registry Zentrale Stelle Verpackungsregister (ZSVR, Osnabrück / Germany; www.verpackungsregister.org), Zentek (Cologne; www.zentek.de) has benefited most from RKD’s market exit.

The “dual system” for waste in Germany refers to the separate kerbside collection of household packaging materials (from manufacturers that pay the licence fee to DSD) as well as other waste.