European Commission has formed an alliance with key industry stakeholders from the plastics value chain such as waste collectors, recyclers, primary producers, converters, brand owners and retailers - including stakeholders from the packaging, construction and automotive sectors. The new alliance is expected to enable EC in achieving the European Plastics Strategy objective that aims use 10 million tonnes of recycled plastics in new products in the EU market by 2025.
The aims of the alliance is to tackle the huge problem of plastic waste and encourage recycling while also improving the economics and quality of plastics recycling in Europe.
The three major objectives that the alliance aims to achieve are:
- Fostering short-term, voluntary and coordinated actions and investments by key industry stakeholders. Such actions and investments, said the EC, could cover separate collection of plastic waste; harmonised reporting on collection and recycling rates and volumes; investments in sorting and recycling facilities; voluntary standards on the 'design for recycling' of plastic products and others.
- Reporting on the obstacles which may hamper stakeholders' efforts to fully deliver on their pledges and to reach the target set for 2025. Some of those obstacles already identified include lack of infrastructure, insufficient access to finance and standardisation gaps.
- Monitoring progress made towards more plastics recycling and more uptake of recycled plastics in Europe. The monitoring, according to EC, should help identify the gaps in the supply and demand for different recycled plastics. In parallel, new voluntary commitments will be encouraged.
The alliance believes that close cooperation in the plastics value chain is key to achieve a true circular plastics economy in Europe.
Find out more about plastics recycling and circular economy at CMT’s RecyclePlast in a Circular Economy in Madrid on 07-08 May, 2019.
