European Recyclers Europe (EuPR) will next year launch new guidelines for plastic packaging recycling, claiming that today's packaging designs are threatening the EU recycling targets.
“Packaging design today is focused mainly on maximising performance,” the association said in a statement. “Careless design often leads to incomplete emptying of a package and what about different combinations of polymers/materials which are incompatible for an efficient recycling process?”
EuPR says designers should put recyclability equal to other performance criteria, which will help divert waste and encourage countries to fulfil EU recycling targets.
It is therefore launching RecyClass, a guide to the recyclability of any plastic package, at the Interpack trade show in Dusseldorf, Germany, next year.
The guide, which is being tested in several European countries at the moment, will classify packaging on a scale of A to G – seven classes comparable to EU energy efficiency classes, says EuPR.