The driver for businesses is always financial and that does not work well at the moment. There are rather doubts about recycling, because being green costs money. Slower growth in China and low oil prices have led to a decrease in the demand of secondary plastics. Customers in India were asking why they should buy recycled plastics when cheaper virgin material is available. “Why should they take the hassles of legal compliance when there are not much difficulties in getting prime plastics?”, Borad pointed out. He continued that the scenario in the european recycling industry was also not promising. He said that this has to be a wake-up call for the industry. He named some measures that have to be taken to promote recycling. The taxes for landfill have to be increased while at the same time VAT on good produced from recycling should be reduced or eliminated like South Korea and China have done. The consumer awareness has to be raised and the regulatory atmosphere for non-hazardous recyclable waste has to be reduced. He emphasised that he believes in a promising future for plastics recycling in the long term. He expects prices to rise significantly in the next five years. But until then the industry has to be patient.
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