Plastic recycling industry accelerates growth towards the EU targets – Plastics News
Despite the disruptions in the waste management market caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, recycling capacity for flexible film in Europe increased by almost 10 percent in 2020, according to the latest figures released by Plastics Recyclers Europe.
Some 30 new recycling facilities were added last year, bringing the total number of such facilities to 2018, with a combined polyethylene film recycling capacity of 2.7 million metric tons.
Linear low density PE/low density PE is the second largest plastic fraction in the European Union market. Annual demand is more than 9 million tonnes, offering significant scope for the establishment of recycling systems.
Already, 17 percent of recycled flexible polyethylene is processed in film-to-film applications, with non-food packaging and building and construction as the main users. Forecasts show that PE film products could incorporate overall as much as 38 percent of recycled content by 2030.
“Once deemed difficult to recycle, flexible household polyethylene waste recycling is a successful business case model of today. Fast-paced technological developments in collection, sorting and recycling, made it possible to recycle film back to film,” said Ton Emans, President of Plastics Recyclers Europe and PRE LDPE-Working Group Chairman.
“Closed-loop recycling is the future of circular flexible plastic, placing Europe as a front runner of mechanical film recycling. This is a strong signal not only for investors but also brand owners, retailers, policy-makers and citizens,” Emans said. “This does not mean that there are no challenges. The main obstacles in targeting new high-end applications are multi-layer and …….
Source: https://www.plasticsnews.com/news/plastic-recycling-industry-accelerates-growth-towards-eu-targets