PlasticsEurope announced on September 9 that it supports the European Commission (EC) proposal on a mandatory EU recycling content target for plastic packaging, and called for the target to be set at 30% by 2030.
The trade association said it “welcomes” the proposed amendments to the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD), and it claims that EU legislation is the “key” for the transition to a circular economy for plastics.
According to PlasticsEurope, members of the organization have achieved this goal by investing in increased supply of high-quality recycled plastics and new technological solutions. It said that expanding chemical recycling is "critical" to achieve the proposed target.
PlasticsEurope also emphasizes that a favorable policy framework and cooperation with the value chain are essential to achieve the goals, and emphasizes the need for new systems thinking, thinking and behavior changes, higher-performance products, eco-design innovations, and new infrastructure.
The organization cited the EU's Recycling Plastics Alliance as a "typical example" of necessary cooperation. The alliance is part of PlasticsEurope and brings together more than 290 value chain members. The goal is to provide 10 million tons of recyclable ingredients in products by 2025.
As such, the UK, which has already left the European Union before, has adopted a plastic tax-a plastic tax of 200 pounds per ton to control the use of plastics, but the plastic content of more than 30% recycled from the market can be tax-free.
The European Commission's 2021 work plan released in October 2020 outlines the plan to revise PPWD. The commission stated that it will propose amendments to the directive as part of its European Green New Deal and the new Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP).
In February 2021, the European Parliament issued a new CEAP resolution, reiterating the goal of making all packaging reusable or recyclable in an economically feasible way by 2030, and called on the committee to immediately propose legislation. Virginia Janssens, Managing Director of PlasticsEurope, added: "We need a unified EU policy framework to provide certainty and incentivize further investment in collection, sorting and recycling infrastructure and technologies (including chemical recycling). We must use the power of the single market. However, systemic change requires collaboration. Only by cooperating with EU institutions and value chains can we achieve this goal. With proper favorable conditions, this will be a very different industry in 10 years. "
The introduction of mandatory recycling components associated with products threatens supply bottlenecks, just like today's RPET EU market. As long as the recycled materials required by the market are not in sufficient quantity and quality, there is a huge risk of quality damage and marketing bans on our plastic packaging. For example, in the field of food packaging, the technical and legal prerequisites for using recycled materials are not yet in place.
Circular economy is a shared responsibility. Therefore, we call for a fair distribution of legal obligations along the value chain, and call on the EU and national authorities to recognize chemical recycling.
In order to prevent supply bottlenecks, plastic manufacturers should be obliged to put a correspondingly high proportion of recyclables or recycled polymers on the EU market. The legal substitution quota for virgin plastics is also the means of choice for this. EUPC President Renato Zelcher (Renato Zelcher) said that suitable concepts are already being studied.
EUPC fundamentally welcomes innovation in recycling and advocates open and fair competition between technologies without blind ideological obedience. Chemical recycling provides opportunities for circular economy, especially when waste streams are so heavily mixed and polluted, plastic waste can no longer be wisely sorted and mechanically recycled. In addition, chemical processes provide recyclables of the quality of original materials, which helps to narrow the supply gap in areas such as recycled polyolefins for food packaging. Mechanical physical processes cannot do this, at least not yet, but there are also innovations here. In the sense of fair competition, the most ecological and economic solution, chemical recycling should be recognized as soon as possible.
