New report on the state of the plastics recycling industry

In a newly published report, Sebastian Kahlert, Catharina Bening and Volker Hoffmann take a close look at the plastics recycling industry. Through a structured online survey, they collected insights on the current state of the industry as well as its future development and upcoming regulatory challenges.

The survey covers around 10-15% of global plastics recycling capacity. The survey shows that the current focus of the industry is on high quality input material, making it difficult to increase recycling quotas significantly without substantial investments in mixed waste processing.
With respect to the industry’s development, legislation regarding recycling and circular economy is seen as the major driver in the near future. Respondents hope for an active engagement of policy makers in the form of monetary incentives for recycling or enforcement of existing regulations. This challenges the findings of a Download 2018 report in collaboration with the CEFLEX consortium (PDF, 6.9 MB), where all stakeholders along the value chain, including recyclers, advocated a policy of non-interference.

The authors also asked about upcoming recycling technologies such as chemical recycling or tracking and tracing, but participants are sceptical to what extent any single technology will impact the industry decisively. Recyclers see consumer brands and packaging companies responsible to improve design for recycling and create demand for recyclate in order to achieve circular economy goals for packaging.

The report can be downloaded Download here (PDF, 1.2 MB)