EU plastic recycling market under threat

As part of the agreement on waste transport regulation reached on 17 November, the EU has decided to ban the export of plastic waste for recycling both inside and outside Europe. This means that plastic waste collected in EU countries will have to be stored there - and eventually incinerated - if no one in Europe or elsewhere wants to buy the material for recycling. The lack of ability to export collected plastic and insufficient recycling capacity in Europe could lead to a collapse in demand, warns Valipac, the Belgian industry organisation responsible for collecting and recycling commercial and industrial packaging waste.

According to Valipac, Belgium alone consumes 100,000 tonnes of commercial plastic packaging per year, of which around 24,000 tonnes are currently exported outside the OECD. "There is thus no solution to recycle up to a quarter of industrial plastic waste," the Belgian association told Euractiv. "There is a real risk that the market for sorting, collecting and recycling plastic packaging will collapse," the association warned, saying, "There is too little recycling capacity in the EU and too few people willing to recycle plastic."

The problem is that today it is much cheaper to produce packaging from virgin plastic than it is to use recycled material, Valipac notes. As a result, European plastic waste is mainly exported for processing into secondary products such as rubbish bags, while there is little demand for recycled plastic waste in the EU, leading to a reduction in recycling capacity. If nothing is done, the plastic packaging waste market risks collapsing due to a lack of outlets in Europe and a ban on exports to non-OECD countries, the association warns.

In the short term, until new recycling capacity becomes available, the new EU regulation on waste transport threatens to hinder rather than promote growth towards the circular economy. The European Confederation of Recycling Industries (EuRIC) agrees that more needs to be done to develop the recycling market in Europe and avoid a crisis. "If the EU decides to ban exports, mandatory recycled content targets are the only solution to attract demand for secondary raw materials and thus create markets for circular materials that previously depended on exports," said Emmanuel Katrakis, secretary general of EuRIC.

"Therefore, we need more targets for recycled content, and not only for plastic, as the level of circular material utilisation at EU level is stagnating," Katrakis told Euractiv. Valipac said it already rewards companies with financial bonuses if they use plastic packaging containing at least 30 per cent recycled materials. "We as an industry need to invest heavily in the use of recycled materials," said Francis Huysmans, CEO of Valipac. This requires large-scale cooperation between Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) organisations in different countries and major investment in the development of recycling processes and facilities in the EU.

Trade association Plastics Europe argues the same, saying that the transition to a net zero circular economy requires a waste management system that facilitates and encourages the reuse of plastics and the recycling of plastic waste. Also, the European recycling industry is facing another challenge: rising imports of plastic labelled as recycled (rPET), which are sold at prices that EU recyclers cannot compete with. "This cannot go on forever because it jeopardises capacity development in the EU and raises again the issue of creating a level playing field, not only European but also global," Katrakis told Euractiv, noting that EuRIC is currently looking for ways to address the problem.