As consistently stressed by EuRIC, European recyclers strongly support mandatory and quantitative recycled content targets for packaging production as an efficient policy instrument to steer the demand for high-quality recycled materials and invest throughout the packaging value chain – from design to end-of-life collection and recycling.
For Paul Mayhew, President of EuRIC Plastics Recycling Branch, “this call made from the voice of plastics manufacturers is a major step forward towards more circularity in the field of packaging and a recognition that binding recycled content targets in EU legislation are a powerful market signal to scale-up circular value chains. It has proved to be an extremely efficient tool for beverage bottles in pulling the demand for food-grade rPET and de-correlating prices from the ever-fluctuating oil market. Extending such an obligation to plastic packaging at large will give the long-term certainty the packaging value chain needs to scale-up and be in a position to supply high-quality recycled polymers”, he added.
With substantial room to improve the uptake of raw materials from recycling (RMR) in a number of plastic packaging types, the recycling industry looks forward cooperating with the plastics industry to meet such a target by 2030.
Emmanuel Katrakis, Secretary General of EuRIC, stressed that “transitioning towards a circular economy is key to achieve climate-neutrality. Binding recycled content targets for plastics and other materials will play a key role in achieving that goal. On top of push-and-pull measures, a comprehensive policy framework that gives an edge to circular value chains in the EU and globally is absolutely essential”, he concluded.
