Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE) represents the voice of the European plastics recycling industry. Argus spoke with PRE president Ton Emans about the current state of the European recycling market and the difficulties that may lie ahead for the plastic recycling industry, including the possible complications caused by overly-ambitious recycled content targets.
In Emans’ view, sustainability targets need to be achievable and take into account the difficulty of scaling up the whole supply chain to produce enough second-generation polymers for the market. He gave the example of rPET, where he said that brands aiming for 100pc recycled content in PET bottles will lead to both an unhealthy level of competition for material and complications for the industry, with only 50-55pc of PET bottles in Europe currently collected for recycling.
Emans also spoke to Argus’ Will Collins about the:
- Growth of the polymer recycling industry since K 2019 and through the Pandemic
- The benefits and pitfalls to avoid with rolling out recycled content targets outside the packaging industry
- Lessons to be learned from the paper industry
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