Europe and US leading world on plastic waste innovation, finds European Patent Office

20 Oct 2021 --- Europe and the US are leading innovation in plastic recycling and alternative plastics technologies, according to a new study published by the European Patent Office (EPO). 

“The study is first a reminder that new technology is needed to address the challenge of plastic waste and enable a circular economy,” Luis Berenguer, EPO spokesperson, tells PackagingInsights.

“This [challenge] includes waste recovery and recycling technologies; in this respect, we show [in the study] a new generation of recycling technologies that have yet to be industrialized have the potential to significantly enhance the recycling loop,” Berenguer outlines.

The study further highlights that of all recycling technologies, chemical and biological recycling methods generated the highest level of patenting activity between 2010-2019. 

A global industry rethink of plastic use and disposal is necessary as plastic waste continues to pollute marine environments, surmounting during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Europe and the US accounted for 60% of patenting activity worldwide in plastic recycling and bioplastic technologies between 2010-2019.Two regions in the lead
International patent families (IPFs) represent an invention for which patent applications have been filed at two or more patent offices worldwide – so-called “high-value inventions.” 

Europe and the US each accounted for approximately 30% of patenting activity worldwide in these sectors between 2010-2019, or 60% combined. “This is more than their usual shares of global patenting and therefore denotes a strong specialization,” clarifies Berenguer.

Within Europe, Germany posted the highest share of patent activity in both plastic recycling and bioplastic technologies – 8% of the global total.

“It is also interesting to observe that several countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium and France, show a strong specialization in nearly all areas of plastic recycling and alternative plastics technologies,” notes Berenguer. 

Meanwhile, with about 18% of IPFs registered between 2010-2019, Japan is “far ahead” of South Korea and China – each at approximately 5% of the global total. However, Berenguer points out these three countries deliver an “unusually modest contribution” to plastic waste innovation compared to Europe and the US.

As of 2019, there have been more than 200 IPFs related to designing for improved recycling.New recycling technologies
Notably, chemical and biological recycling methods accounted for 9,000 IPFs between 2010-2019, marking double the number filed for mechanical recycling (4,500 IPFs). Mechanical recycling is currently the most common solution for converting plastic waste into new products. 

Patents for standard chemical methods, such as cracking and pyrolysis, reached a peak in 2014. 

However, these patents followed closely behind emerging technologies, such as biological methods using living organisms (1,500 IPFs) or plastic-to-monomer recycling (2,300 IPFs). These recycling technologies now offer new possibilities to degrade polymers and produce virgin-like plastics.

Europe can do more
Despite Europe’s leading contribution to plastic waste innovation, EPO flags “much more can be done” to turn pioneering European research into scalable solutions.

The EPO report finds Europe is the only major innovation hub that contributed more to upstream research (29%) than to all IPFs in the field (26%) between 2010-2019, suggesting research potential is “not yet fully realized.” 

Meanwhile, US start-ups and scale-ups generated four times more IPFs than their European counterparts (338 versus 84).

“Therefore, there is an opportunity for European businesses and policymakers to better exploit Europe’s untapped potential and bring new technologies to market,” says Berenguer.

“This [potential] is fundamentally a matter of supporting technology transfers and collaborations between universities and industry, as already illustrated by some successful examples, such as Carbios in France or Covestro in Germany. Long-term visibility on regulations such as recycling targets can be helpful to drive investments in that direction.”

In the past decade, there have been over 6,000 bioplastics-related IPFs in the packaging sector alone.Moves in bioplastics
In the bioplastic arena, the EPO study reveals the healthcare sector has by far the most patenting activity – more than 19,000 IPFs in 2010-2019 – despite accounting for less than 3% of the total demand for plastics in Europe. 

However, the cosmetics and detergents sector has the largest share of its patenting activity in bioplastics, with the ratio of bioplastics IPFs to conventional plastics IPFs being 1:3, compared to 1:5 in the healthcare sector. 

“Some of these [biodegradable and compostable] technologies can help the transition toward a circular economy, but waste recovery and recycling will remain necessary in any case,” notes Berenguer. 

“In practice, we observe most bioplastics-related patenting activities are driven by specific needs for medical applications, for example, biodegradable stents or orthopedic devices,” he adds.

Besides packaging, electronics and textiles are also significant contributors to bioplastics innovation.

By Anni Schleicher