PolyCert Europe, a compliance scheme to ensure that the methods used by certification schemes throughout Europe to calculate recycled content are harmonised, and MORE, EuPC’s monitoring platform that tracks and records the use of recycled plastics in Europe, have pooled their expertise to work together towards achieving Europe’s ambitious 2025 recycled plastics goal.
While the volume of recycled plastics that is annually used in the European Union may be rising, if the ambitious targets set by the Commission are to be achieved by 2025, these amounts must , at the least, double. Currently, some 5 million tonnes are reused by the industry each year. The European Commission's target is the reuse of 10 million tonnes of recycled polymers annually by 2025 - a target that led to the Commission’s launch in 2018 of the Circular Plastics Alliance (CPA). As a voluntary platform for the industry - and today boasting over 240 organisations and companies covering the full plastics value chain as participants - its aim is to deliver on the circular economy for plastics and substantially increase the use of recycled plastics into new products.
At its launch, the Alliance also committed to setting up a harmonised EU value chain voluntary system to monitor volumes of recycled plastics used in European products.
In response, EuPC, the European association of plastics converters, developed MORE - Monitoring Recyclates for Europe - a unified, digital platform to monitor the use of recycled polymers in the European plastics converting industry, open to all converting companies that use recycled polymers in their products. Just last month, MORE was officially confirmed as a Circular Plastics Alliance data collector by both the CPA Monitoring Secretariat and CPA Monitoring Working Group.
Centexbel-VKC, in Belgium and the Belgian Quality Association (BQA) then established a consortium PolyCert Europe in partnership with a number of industry associations. The aim was to set up an EU-level third party quality compliance scheme for plastics converters and to harmonise the recycled content calculation methodology used by existing certification schemes in Europe, in order to ensure compliance with the relevant standards and regulations.
Hence, companies report data on the volumes of recycled plastics they convert or use in their products to the MORE platform. Independent, unbiased audits - a key element in the CPA system - guarantee that the reported data is reliable, which is where PolyCert Europe comes in. Within PolyCert Europe, organisations are brought together to share best practices, to harmonise and to set minimum requirements for audit schemes.
Joining forces, the two will facilitate and ensure that the CPA reporting process meets the highest standards. High-quality audits help companies to better manage their processes and improve their reporting.
Referring to the ‘synergy’ between the two tools, which will ‘help the plastics converting industry to reach the EU target of 10 million tonnes’, EuPC President Renato Zelcher said that the ‘PolyCert Europe will facilitate the verification and auditing of the volumes reported into the MORE platform’.
Polycert Europe President Jan Laperre added that delivering high-added-value audits in plastic converting companies throughout Europe that embrace the circular economy, has always been the goal of PolyCert Europe.
“We are very motivated to team up with MORE and to join forces to make sure that the data collection by MORE is not only done in a very efficient and reliable way but that it also brings added-value for the companies,” he said.