The European Commission wants to reduce the environmental impact of packaging by mandating that producers use a minimum amount of recycled plastic in new packaging placed on the market.
Only 5% of plastic in packaging came from recycled sources in 2019, according to industry group Plastics Europe. And recyclers face an uphill battle to sell secondary materials in a market dominated by cheaper and higher-quality virgin supplies.
To tackle this, Brussels is expected to boost the demand for recycled plastic by broadening recycled content targets from plastic bottles to all plastic packaging.
A proposal in that direction will be put forward as part of the revision of the EU’s packaging and packaging waste directive, which is expected on 30 November.
A leaked draft of the proposal, seen by EURACTIV, requires all plastic packaging placed on the EU market to “contain certain minimum amount of recycled content recovered from post-consumer plastic waste” as of January 2030.
The 2030 targets, which are tentative and could still change before the proposal is published, would increase again by 2040 in the following way:
- 25% for contact sensitive plastic packaging like food wraps (50% as of 2040)
- 50% for single use plastic beverage bottles (65% as of 2040)
- 45% for other plastic packaging (65% as of 2040)
Whatever targets are eventually adopted, the intention is clear – Brussels wants to boost the market for recycled plastics by mandating a minimum amount of recycled material in new packaging.
The move is also expected to push up collection rates and drive companies to design products in line with the recycling process as it becomes in their interest to do so, according to the recycling industry association, EuRIC.
“If you want to have recycled content, you must have eco-design,” said EuRIC secretary general Emmanuel Katrakis. “You must have proper collection. You must have recycling. You must have industries that are going to buy recycled materials. Then it’s the responsibility of everyone to make sure that it works,” he told EURACTIV.
Recycled content targets already exist for plastic bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) under the EU’s single use plastics directive, which stipulates that 25% of bottles should come from recycled plastic by 2025, increasing to 30% by 2030.
These recycled content targets drove a system change in the production and recycling of plastic bottles, according to Katrakis. Recycling PET saves more than 70% of energy and CO2 emissions and this is now better reflected in the price, he explained.
EU plastics producers have already called for a mandatory EU recycled content target of 30% by 2030.
But makers of beverage cartons say the target should not go higher than 30%. Otherwise, this will create discrepancies with the single-use plastic directive, warns Annick Carpentier from the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE).
Beverage cartons pose a challenge for recyclers because they contain added layers of aluminium and plastic on the inside of the package. These are added to ensure the contents are protected against damp and air, as well as ensuring drinks, soups and sauces have a longer shelf-life.
While techniques exist to separate plastics from the fibre, they haven’t been deployed yet on a large scale, although the industry says this is being addressed.
In a study, ACE said the beverage carton industry has so far invested around €200 million in recycling capacities and plans to invest a further €120-150 million until 2027, mostly on polymers and aluminium (PolyAl) recycling facilities.
Another potential solution would be to adapt packaging design in order to make it easier to separate the different layers of plastic and paper and improve recyclability.
“Eco-design is indeed another really important factor to increase recycling rates of things like multi-layered packaging,” said Mike Turner, the managing director the European Carton Makers Association (ECMA). “And that means designing recyclability into the package item,” he told EURACTIV in a recent interview.
Source : Euractiv
