NEWS


Plastics Europe launches its roadmap for Plastics Transition


Plastics Europe has announced plans for how the plastics industry in Europe will move towards circularity, although safeguarding global competitiveness is just as important for the body that represents Europe-based polymer producers. The Plastics Transition roadmap involves measures to reduce green- house gas emissions from the overall plastics system by 28% by 2030 and towards net-zero by 2050. It is predicted to lead to the gradual substitution of fossil-based plastics, so that circular plastics could meet 25% of European demand in 2030 and 65% by 2050 (see Plastics Europe roadmap here). The roadmap is intended “to completely redesign the European plastics sector”, said Marco ten Bruggencate, President of Plastics Europe, and Dow EMEA Commercial Vice President Packaging and Spe- cialty Plastics, during a press briefing. Plastics Europe says it recognises the huge ambition of its roadmap – which will involve €235bn in addition- al investments and operational costs – but that it is possible to transform Europe’s plastics industry and also make it competitive with other plastics-producing regions. “There is a direct correlation


tonnes of plastics, 22m tonnes, or 35%, will come from fossil-based plastics, with the remaining 65% from circular plastics, including: 15m tonnes from mechanical recycling, 12m tonnes from chemical recycling, 11m tonnes from biomass and 3m tonnes from CCU.


between the industry’s competitive- ness and its ability to execute the roadmap,” said ten Bruggencate. Virginia Janssens, Managing


Director of Plastics Europe, said the roadmap will act as “our North Star”, informing all decisions taken in the years to come. The three pillars of the transition


plans, which were presented by Maarten Dubois, Director of Sustain- ability at Deloitte, are to make plastics circular, to help drive lifecycle emis- sions to net zero and to foster the sustainable use of plastics. Based on a projection for 2050 that converters in Europe will use 65m


Chemical recycling The importance of chemical recycling to the plans was discussed during the press briefing’s Q&A session. Ten Bruggencate stressed the “need to scale up chemical recycling”. Plastics Europe is in discussions with the European Commission about the mass balance approach that is needed for polymer producers to allocate recycled content from chemical (mainly pyrolytic) recycling to new products. Janssens said Plastics Europe’s position is to accept that fuel products cannot be included in mass balance allocation as plastics-to-fuel is not considered as recycling. This results in chemical recycling having lower yields than would be the case using a free allocation approach. She said: “In other regions of the world, free allocation may be applied, so we need to be very careful.” � https://plasticseurope.org


Coca-Cola HBC starts rPET production in Romania


Following an €11m invest- ment, including €3.5m of state aid, Coca-Cola HBC Romania has begun to produce rPET packaging in-house, providing a steady supply of high quality rPET for its bottles. The move sees Romania become the first market within the group to combine


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what the company calls the three key pillars of circular- ity: the use of 100% recy- cled bottles across the portfolio, an in-house rPET production facility, and a soon-to-be-launched deposit return scheme to collect used bottles and cans for further recycling. In 2022, 22% of the PET


PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | November/December 2023


plastic used across Coca- Cola HBC’s EU and Swiss markets was from recycled material. Following the investment in Romania and transitions to recycled bottle portfolios in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Ireland and Northern Ireland, the company is on track to deliver almost 50% rPET use


in EU and Swiss markets by the end of 2023, a year ahead of the deadline set by the company as part of the UNESDA circular packaging vision for EU markets. Romania’s DRS scheme is set to start in December, with six more planned in the company’s markets by 2025. � www.coca-colahellenic.com


www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com


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