Plastics Recyclers Europe releases guidance on quality sorting of plastic packaging
Plastics Strategy highlights the importance of quality sorting as “essential to avoid introducing contaminants in the recycling streams and retain high safety standards for recycled materials.”[3] In Europe, the groundwork, however, has been laid out as high-quality sorting practices that could be EU-wide implemented do exist already. The challenge, nevertheless, is to create a system where all the complementing steps, such as separate packaging waste collection, harmonised sorting standards and bales quality checks are optimised and equally enforced at the Member State level.
It is thus essential to promote the separate collection of plastic packaging waste, and at the same time to create standards which will promote best practices in sorting and bales specifications for sorted plastic packaging waste. With these efforts, we can genuinely capture the value of plastic waste and transform it into new high-quality products, produced in accordance with the highest European safety standards.
High-quality sorting of plastic packaging waste will lead to an increased productivity and improved cost-efficiency of the recycling processes, resulting in the production of high-quality recyclates. Such measures are essential if the industry is to move closer towards circular economy.
[1] PlasticsEurope (2018), “Plastics – the Facts 2018”; https://www.plasticseurope.org/application/files/6315/4510/9658/Plastics_the_facts_2018_AF_web.pdf
[2] Eurostat 2016
[3] European Commission Communication “A European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy”, 16 January 2018, COM(2018)28 final; http://ec.europa.eu/environment/circular-economy/pdf/plastics-strategy.pdf