INNOVATION | AUTOMOTIVE
several OEMs for high-end structural automotive components, including centre console carriers and dashboard carriers, demonstrating its suitability for premium applications. Covestro has announced a collaboration with Chinese plastics recycling company Ausell, to accelerate the recycling of plastics from end-of-life vehicles. Ausell already recycles 1 million PC water barrels annualy, converting them into high-perfor- mance recycled PC. With this addition, Ausell will supply recycled polycarbonates from discarded automotive headlamps, which Covestro will process into high-quality recycled materials for automotive engineering applications. “This partnership underscores the importance of
cross-sector collaboration in driving the circular economy forward,” said Martin Hansen, Regional Director of GIZ in East Asia. “By bringing together key industry players, we are not only creating viable solutions for recycling high-value plastics from end-of-life vehicles but also fostering innovation that supports a sustainable, closed-loop material flow in the automotive industry.”
Strategic source The BMW Group and PreZero, the international circular economy company that forms parts of the Schwarz Group, signed a strategic cooperation agreement to substantially advance circular economy across the European automotive industry. The aim of the collaboration, according to BMW, is to develop a business model for the recycling of end-of-life vehicles, creating a closed loop for both materials and recycling. The core of this collaboration is to develop a viable business model, using ELVs as a strategic source of materials. Within the framework of the collaboration, innovative and efficient recycling processes for end-of-life vehicles will be jointly tested and brought to series maturity, while new approaches to material flow management will also be developed. A core element will be knowledge transfer: from the assembly line to the recycling pipeline, the BMW Group will contribute its “design for recy- cling” know-how and insights gained from the recycling of ELVs at its in-house Recycling and Dismantling Centre, as well as materials and manufacturing expertise. PreZero will share its expert knowledge of European material flows and sorting technologies. In May this year, The Global Impact Coalition
(GIC), a CEO-led platform enabling the chemical industry and its value chain to transition to a circular and net-zero chemicals future, announced
www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com
that Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) joined GIC’s Auto- motive Plastic Circularity project as a founding member, to scale automotive circularity. This industry platform works to build a market for recycled automotive plastics. The objective is to overcome chain barriers related to cost coordina- tion, material quality standards and cross sector alignment, to move from pilot projects to real- world material flow infrastructure. JLR operates a Circularity Lab that brings together cross-functional teams and external partners to solve challenges around recyclability and material recovery. The collaboration could show how coordination between manufacturers, material suppliers, and recyclers can create standardised approaches to end-of-life vehicle plastic recovery. By aligning procurement specifica- tions with recycling capabilities, the partnership seeks to establish commercially viable circular material flows. JLR is one of three OEMs getting involved and will work together with chemical companies to provide expertise in vehicle design and circularity innovation. The company will help prioritize vehicle components, define specifications for recycled automotive plastics, and contribute to the develop- ment of a business case and an industry roadmap for end-of-life vehicle plastics recycling. Charlie Tan, CEO of the Global Impact Coalition, welcomed JLR to the project as an important step forward, stating that if automotive plastics recycling is going to scale, OEMs need to be a part of the solution: “Today, the challenge is not technology. It is that the plastics value chain was never designed to recover materials at the end of life. As a result, recovery remains complex, inconsistent and often uneconomic. Our Phase 1 pilot and report showed that meaningful recovery is possible. The next phase is about addressing the structural barriers and moving towards implementation at an industry scale. This requires coordination across the value
Above: BMW Group and PreZero signed a cooperation agreement to develop a
business model for the recycling of end-of-life vehicles
May/June 2026 | PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD 15
IMAGE: BMW
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