Europe boosts recycled content 20%, challenges loom

The European plastics industry increased its use of post-consumer recycled content in products by 20 percent last year, to a 10 percent level, but it wants stronger policies from governments supporting chemical recycling to accelerate that.

The head of the trade group Plastics Europe made that argument at an Oct. 20 news conference at K 2022, where the association unveiled its "Plastics — The Facts 2022" report on economic trends.

The group called chemical recycling a key lever, along with more mechanical recycling, for increasing the circularity of plastics, and it stressed that it wanted to see specific legislation supporting chemical recycling to encourage investment.

"There are massive investment announcements, in Europe and globally, and we need to make sure that recognition [of chemical recycling] is there at the European level, in legislation, so the investor security is there, yesterday," said Virginia Janssens, Plastics Europe managing director. "We need it yesterday. … We need that enabling framework to move faster."

As part of that, the group said a regulatory system that accepts mass balance standards, a system for measuring recycled or renewable content within fossil fuel-based feedstocks, is important for chemical recycling.

Janssens also said expanding traditional mechanical recycling is important.

The Brussels-based trade group's report said European plastics products used 10.1 percent recycled content in 2021, or about 5.5 million metric tons, which was a 20 percent increase from the year before. That figure includes recycled-content plastic used in all markets in Europe, including packaging as well as in durable goods like housing, construction and cars.

The report said bio-based plastics made up 2.3 percent of European plastics production in 2021, meaning that 12.4 percent of the total European plastics production is nonfossil fuel-based.

In a news release, the group endorsed the European Union's "aspirational target" of having 20 percent of the continent's plastics come from nonfossil carbon by 2030. By comparison, it said, for the global plastics industry and its 390 million metric tons of production in 2021, 9.8 percent of it came from non-fossil-based sources.

The global post-consumer recycled-content average is 8.3 percent and bio-based 1.5 percent, Plastics Europe said.

Janssens said the European industry is committed to following a path laid out in its April report "Reshaping Plastics," which called on the industry to speed up investments in circular and recycling technologies to boost recycling rates and, by 2050, get the industry to net zero carbon emissions.

She said the association would be developing a road map next year to implement that report.

Echoing what other European associations have said at K, though, Janssens said the energy crisis in Europe from the Russia-Ukraine war is creating significant challenges.

"Even though the market demand for recyclates is higher than the supply, the soaring energy and feedstock prices resulting from Russia's unjustified aggression towards Ukraine are driving very significant challenges for our industry, supply chain and all EU economies," the group said in a news release. "Supply bottlenecks will likely continue to be an issue in the coming months."

It also said "huge uncertainties" in feedstock supply, energy prices and potential shortages make it extremely difficult to provide a 2023 outlook.

In its news release, it said Europe's global competitiveness in plastics is at risk, with the continent falling from 23 percent of global plastics production in 2006 to 19 percent in 2017 and to 15 percent in 2021.

Janssens told reporters that the European plastics industry is still assessing the full impact of the energy crisis but said the industry is facing potential production stops.

In its news release, the group said the continent's plastics production is expected to decrease 4 percent by the end of the year.

But Janssens said the industry will continue to move ahead with investments in circularity.

"We hear from our members, and they state it publicly as well, their continued commitments, and despite the crisis today, they remain committed to the long-term objectives of the circularity and net zero journey," Janssens said.