Recently, IdentiPlast 2019, a conference on plastic recycling and recycling organized jointly by the European Plastics Europe and the British Plastics Federation, was held in London to discuss how to deal with plastics in the environment, including marine waste.
In the past few years, some governments, industry associations and individual companies have launched initiatives to reduce the emission of waste plastics to the environment, which has attracted wide attention from the plastic recycling industry. Experts believe that in order to achieve the objectives of these initiatives, it is imperative to further develop recycling and recycling technologies for plastics.
Javier Constante, president of the European Association of Plastic Manufacturers and Vice President of Commerce of the EMEA Regional Packaging and Special Plastics Department of Dow Chemical, said at the meeting that the plastic industry faced unprecedented pressure from non-governmental organizations, society and politicians to deal with waste plastics. In the past, the industry has not carefully studied this issue, and now we are taking positive action, but there is no good response.
Members of the European Association of Plastic Manufacturers have pledged to ensure high reuse and recovery of plastics. The main objective is to achieve 60% reuse and recycling of all plastic packaging in the EU by 2030 and 100% reuse, recycling or recycling of all plastic packaging by 2040. The primary objective of the project is to prevent plastic leaking into the environment to improve resource efficiency and recycling efficiency of plastic packaging. "We have the opportunity to create a new business model and bring the real value of plastics to society," Constant said. He said that the plastic industry is actually "wasting value" because it does not make full use of the plastic recycling and recycling value chain.
In his keynote speech, Daniel Crespo, the Environment Director-General of the European Commission, stressed the leading role of Europe in plastics and recycling economy. He said that the European Union had launched a plan of action for recycling economy as early as 2015 and issued a proposal for a directive on the sustainable use of plastics in 2018, listing the 10 most common disposable plastics items on European beaches.
However, according to the assessment, the collection rate of plastic waste in the EU is less than 30%. The one-time use of plastic products has caused huge losses, amounting to 70 billion to 105 billion euros annually. In this regard, the European Commission has proposed the goal that by 2030, all plastic packaging on the European Union market must be recyclable and reusable. By 2025, about 25% of bottled PET must be recycled, and the recycling rate will reach 30% by 2030. "The EU is the first region to implement mandatory recycling of plastic packaging, hoping to establish a well-functioning EU recycled plastic market," Crespo said.
Tom Crotty, vice president of the European Association of Plastic Manufacturers and executive director of Ineos Group, stressed that the Association's voluntary commitment will promote the development of the plastic machinery and chemical recycling industry. Crotty said, "To solve the problem of recycling, decomposing and remanufacturing plastic waste into raw materials, the industry is also facing technical challenges." Crotty also emphasized that consumers must be actively involved in this action. Nowadays, people do not distinguish different types of plastics, which brings challenges to the management of plastic waste.
The European Association of Plastic Manufacturers has established many recycling platforms for different plastic product chains, such as polyolefin recycling economy platform, styrene recycling solution and Vinyl Plus platform. "These platforms are the key to developing recycling technologies for waste plastics," Crotty said.
Jim Seward, President of the World Plastics Council (WPC) and Vice President of International Business of Leandebaser, also pointed out that there is still a gap between the announced plastic recycling goals and recycling capacity. Based on today's technology and business model, the European Union's plastic recycling plan can not be realized. Only with global participation can substantial changes be made in the future.
Seward lists the "hierarchy" of plastic recycling and recycling technologies. He said that the importance of reuse ranked first, and mechanical recovery was second. Advanced recycling and recycling processes, such as gasification, pyrolysis and hydropyrolysis, were the next level, and energy recovery was the bottom level.
More than 200 million tourists travel to the Mediterranean every year, resulting in a 40% increase in disposable plastic marine litter such as pipes, mixers, plastic cups, water bottles and inflatable pool toys used in summer, resulting in widespread pollution of waters and beaches along the Mediterranean coast.
