The European Plastics Converters Association has published results from its second European survey on the use of recycled plastics materials in Europe’s plastics converting industry.
376 companies from 21 countries took part in the nine-month long study, which was commissioned to follow up on the results of the first edition and provide deeper insight into the reasons preventing a bigger up of recycled plastics materials by converting companies.
The survey found that 76 per cent of plastics converters are convinced that the improvement of the collection and sorting of plastic waste would be the most suitable way to increase the quality of recycled plastics materials.
Other potential measures include investments in better recycling technologies, and the implementation of better design for recycling.
According to the survey 80 per cent of plastics converters are already doing their part to improve the quality of recycled plastics materials by taking measures to improve the quality of recyclates.
It also found that an increase of recycled plastics materials volumes that are incorporated into new products as envisioned in the Plastics Strategy is practically impossible under the current conditions, as out of the ten plastics materials included in the survey, only PET was found to be of a sufficient quality.
A third survey will be launched later in the year, and EuPC is currently working on a project to develop a single, unified online tool to monitor the use of recycled plastics materials in the European plastics converting industry.