To inform policy development and infrastructure planning the European Composites Industry Association (EuCIA) has estimated the volume of thermoset composites waste accessible for recycling. This data will also support the activities of the new European Circular Composites Alliance (ECCA).
The effective management of end-of-life (EoL) composites requires accurate data on the waste volumes. However, the amount of composites waste generated in Europe is not officially monitored. EuCIA has therefore been collaborating with its members and partners to estimate the potential size of the composites recycling market.
EuCIA has developed a model based on the gross domestic product (GDP) of European countries which predicts a total volume of thermoset composites waste of about 914 kt in Europe in 2025. In reality, the situation is more complex and the volume currently accessible for recycling is much lower for several reasons:
- Some composite components (e.g. wind turbine blades) are exported for reuse outside of Europe.
- In many cases, composite parts are embedded in infrastructure that cannot be easily retrieved for recycling, such as underground pipes and tanks.
- Collection and sorting systems tailored to recycling composites are limited and therefore a large number of end-of-use composite products are not collected.
EuCIA therefore conducted a deeper analysis per market, taking into account a number of factors, including the existence of established collection and recycling routes. This indicates that the actual volume of thermoset composites waste accessible for recycling is likely to be around 228 kt in 2025, approximately 25% of the theoretical amount predicted by the GDP waste model. Of this, we estimate that currently a maximum of 5% is being recycled.
These figures clearly show an untapped resource that could potentially be returned to the value chain. Exploiting this opportunity will require the building of a robust European value chain and infrastructure to enable reuse and recycling of composite materials. Longer term, establishing systems to enable more widespread collection and sorting of composites waste will be key to fully realising a circular economy for composite materials.
This waste data will input into the activities of the new European Circular Composites Alliance (ECCA), which aims to identify and resolve the legal, economic and technical barriers to composites recycling. The alliance will recommend essential policy updates, such as the creation of dedicated waste codes for EoL composites, to enable the scaling up of sustainable composites recycling solutions. It will also promote the building of markets for secondary (recycled) composites.
