Solving the challenge of plastic pollution in Europe cannot be achieved without a healthy plastics recycling value chain. EU institutions have taken important legislative steps to advance plastic circularity on the territory. Nonetheless, an approach that alleviates the current pressure on European recyclers will be crucial in the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR).
The PPWR is set to harmonise recycling and plastic manufacturing practices across EU Member States, bring in investments, contribute to advancing plastics circularity and safeguard the EU Green Deal’s environmental objectives. The current debate is, however, driving away the initial optimism. Allowing post-consumer plastics from outside the EU to contribute to the targets without control and verification mechanisms would further impact an already shrinking and threatened market.
2023 shows a downturn in the growth of the plastics recycling industry, with EU players losing competitiveness vis-à-vis non-EU companies. Prices of recycled plastics decreased by up to 50%, while imports of non-EU recycled content significantly increased. In 2023, the market already responded to this destabilisation by increasing exports of EU plastic waste by 18%. This results in more EU waste being landfilled and incinerated, leading to severe pollution of ecosystems, and jeopardising the environmental objectives of the European Green Deal. Given this, the main concern regarding the discussion on PPWR is that it would allow to meet the EU recycled content targets with self-declared recycled plastic from third countries, which is not verified or verifiable.
Two key measures to be implemented are control and verification mechanisms coupled with a regional circularity perspective and the so-called proximity principle in line with the environmental objectives of the EU, where waste is managed as close as possible to its place of production.
Furthermore, regulations and taxes that ensure recycled content are the way forward, but without robust measures, they will just contribute to a further increase in unverified imports. The UK’s Plastic Packaging Tax – by which plastic packaging without a minimum of 30% recycled content is subject to a financial contribution – is a good example, as it resulted in the rise in imports of self-declared recycled plastics, as well as finished and semi-finished products with recycled content.
Reducing or stopping future investments in Europe’s recycling systems would also lead to European greenhouse gas emissions more than doubling by 2040, as confirmed by a recent issue brief[1] based on a 2023 study[2]. This puts into question the objectives of the European Green Deal.
The critical situation of the plastics recycling sector reflects the general context in the EU’s industry: a worrying lack of competitiveness in a geopolitical landscape where not all countries play by the same rules. In this sense, the PPWR must bring legal certainty to the entire European plastic recycling value chain. Plastic recyclers are the first to experience the consequences of imported recycled materials, but European converters and virgin material producers will also be impacted mid-term.
One of the main objectives of the revision of the PPWD was to make all the packaging on the EU market recyclable in an economically viable way by 2030, which will not happen if companies do not have enough legal certainty to invest. What is more, the Plastic Strategy is about “transforming the way plastic products are designed, produced, used and recycled in the EU”, an objective that should stay on top of policymakers’ agendas.
Unless EU institutions act now, recycling targets will turn into question marks threatening the future of the European plastics recycling industry together with the plastic industry at large.
Have questions about plastic recycling? The Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (APR) can help! APR is the voice of plastic recycling and they want...
