Signed, sealed, delivered: Circular Plastics Alliance commits to 10m metric tons of recycled plastics by 2025
23 Sep 2019 --- The Circular Plastics Alliance (CPA) has officially adopted its declaration to ensure that ten million metric tons of recycled plastics are used in EU products by 2025. The CPA gathered public and private stakeholders operating in plastics value chains in Brussels, Belgium, last week to promote voluntary actions and commitments for more recycled plastics. PackagingInsights spoke with co-signing organizations who confirmed their commitment to the CPA’s declaration.
The announcement comes as private and public concern for the rising tide of global plastic pollution has prompted regulatory action. The UK government is set to impose a plastics tax on packaging containing less than 30 percent recycled content, in addition to an “all-in” Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and reforms on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).
With their signatures, over 100 associations and organizations declared their commitment to cooperate along the plastics value chains to reach this objective while ensuring the functionalities of plastic products and packaging.
The CPA’s declaration prioritizes five topics:
- Collection and sorting of plastic waste.
- Product design for recycling.
- Recycled plastic content in products.
- R&D and investments, including chemical recycling.
- Monitoring of recycled plastics sold in the EU.
The launch of the CPA was announced on December 11, 2018, while the CPA conference took place on September 20, 2019 in Brussels. The event began with panel discussions on the significance of the CPA and how to support it. European Commission (EC) First Vice President (VP) Frans Timmermans ended the talks with a closing address, followed by the signature of the declaration by all parties present.
PackagingInsights spoke with Virginia Janssens, European Organization for Packaging and the Environment (EUROPEN) Managing Director; Ermis Panagiotopoulos, Sustainability Director at European Federation of Bottled Waters (EFBW) and Laura Degallaix, FoodDrinkEurope Director of Environmental Sustainability, on the difficulties of plastic packaging production, the CPA’s efforts in the past year and both organizations’ specific plans to help achieve the CPA’s declaration goal.
The CPA’s role
All three organizations understand the CPA’s role as the leading force among all actors along the plastics value chain to identify common challenges and opportunities. Concerned actors are needed to take up their own responsibilities to advance the uptake of recycled plastics in packaging.
“Consumer safety is the number one priority, not only for the food and beverage industry but for all fast-moving consumer goods companies, including cosmetics and hygiene products. Patient safety is also a key priority for the medical sector. Food and beverage companies have to comply with legal safety requirements, which the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) regulates,” Janssens explains.
This highlights the importance of EU policy-makers’, national and local authorities’, as well as NGOs’ involvement to join the efforts of the CPA, as only a combined effort will result in outcomes with ecologic and economic benefits.
Especially now that the CPA declaration has been officially signed, work can “officially begin,” says Degallaix. Janssens also notes that the governance structure is almost finalized after which the co-signatories can start with the specified tasks and work program in the declaration of the CPA.
The declaration was signed by over 100 organizations just nine months after the Circular Plastics Alliance's initial founding.Structural change
Panagiotopoulos identifies structural change as the key instrument to decrease plastic wastage. “If the issue is littering, moving away [from plastics] to other materials would not be of any help. What would help is infrastructural change. Achieving high collection in every Member State is what is needed regardless of the material choice,” he says.
Janssens agrees that such structural change provides some elemental solutions to current plastic waste problems. “Packaging waste management, as well as litter prevention and clean-up, require multi-faceted and multi-stakeholder approaches and solutions. The accountability to drive structural change should be on all involved stakeholders. Only together do we have the levers to solve the issue. It makes it complex, but the necessity to act is there. The CPA is one illustration of a multi-stakeholder platform to drive real change.”
Degallaix also accredits much of current day actions against plastic waste to a growing public awareness. “Today, we are confronted with a number of challenges without precedence, such as climate change and resource scarcity. For our sector to be able to feed a growing population with safe and nutritious food while remaining competitive, there is a need to use resources more sustainably and move towards a circular economy. We have therefore been multiplying efforts to reduce, redesign and reuse plastic packaging.”
Valuable resources, not waste
What is also required to make critical changes in plastic bottle consumption is a revision of plastic production. Panagiotopoulos emphasizes the fact that the high uptake of recycled PET by the bottled water industry will greatly contribute towards reaching the vision of the CPA.
“Empty polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles should be viewed as valuable resources, not as waste – they should not be discarded. Action is needed to dramatically increase the collection, high-quality sorting and recycling of PET bottles. This will allow for this valuable resource to be used again and for it to be integrated into new bottles,” Panagiotopoulos says.
Both Degallaix and Janssens agree that increasing the use of recycled plastic materials in products requires to review the design of such products. The emphasis here lies in how to make them reusable and recyclable, to improve collection and sorting, and to develop recycling technologies and infrastructure throughout the EU.
“Industry invests in R&D, sustainable design and technologies, including the incorporation of recycled plastics as part of their shared responsibility to help solve the plastic pollution issue. Fighting plastic pollution also depends on external factors beyond the manufacturing industry, including the enforcement of proper collection, sorting and recycling and the related infrastructure needs,” Janssens elaborates.
Current ambitions and future plans
The long-term goal which the CPA’s declaration stipulate is ultimately ensuring that ten million metric tons of recycled plastics are used to make products in Europe in 2025. FoodDrinkEurope, EUROPEN and EFBW are all dedicated to keeping the recycled-plastics movement alive and well.
As part of the CPA, FoodDrinkEurope plans on actively engaging in the actions related to design for recyclability and recycled content and provide input to the work on collection and sorting and research and development. Their focus lies in engaging more stakeholders in the journey, including individual food and drink companies, national and local public authorities and NGOs.
In October 2018, FoodDrinkEurope launched a sustainable packaging roadmap aimed at rethinking the way the food and drink industry uses plastics and addressing plastic waste prevention and reduction. The main objectives are to reduce the amount of plastic packaging we use; replace plastics with alternative materials to plastics; and advocate for improved waste management schemes including increased collection, sorting and recycling rates.
EUROPEN aims to contribute to the progress of the CPA by stipulating recycling guidelines for packaging plastics products, adhering to the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) standards on recyclability and the providing identification of technical barriers to meet the market and regulatory needs of circular plastics. EUROPEN also strives to ensure the necessary framework conditions for increasing the uptake of recycled content in plastic packaging are identified and included.
“With our commitment, we also rely on the other value chain partners and the EC to take up their respective roles and responsibilities which are key to achieve our common goal.” Janssens indicates.
As the founding member of the European PET Bottle Platform (EPBP), EFBW contributes to the CPA’s goals by providing design guidelines for recycling and evaluating new bottles put on the market. PET is the only polymer having these guidelines so their contribution will be on sharing the best practices in relation to design for recycling.
By Anni Schleicher
