Flexible film recycling capacity grows by almost 10 per cent
The European plastic recycling industry registered a nearly 10 per cent increase in installed plastic recycling capacity for flexible film in 2020, demonstrating a solid growth despite the COVID pandemic.
The new estimate points to a 2.7Mt capacity for PE film recycling with 30 new film recycling facilities, totalling 218.
Representing a demand of more than nine million tonnes, LLDPE/LDPE is the second largest plastic fraction in the EU market and therefore shows a major recycling potential. Just 17 per cent of recycled flexible polyethylene finds a way into film-to-film applications, with non-food packaging and building and construction being its largest markets, according to Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE), while the forecasts show that PE film products could incorporate as much as 38 per cent of recycled content by 2030.
Ton Emans, President of Plastics Recyclers Europe and PRE LDPE-Working Group Chairman, said: “Once deemed difficult to recycle, flexible household polyethylene waste recycling is a successful business case model of today. Fast-paced technological developments in collection, sorting and recycling, made it possible to recycle film back to film. Closed-loop recycling is the future of circular flexible plastic, placing Europe as a front runner of mechanical film recycling. This is a strong signal not only for investors but also brand-owners, retailers, policy makers and citizens. This does not mean that there are no challenges. The main obstacles in targeting new high-end applications are multi-layer & multi-material products, which are not in line with the Design for Recycling principles.”
The growth of flexible plastic recycling is set to expand with the ongoing positive trends. With extended collection schemes being implemented, the collection of flexible plastic film from households is set to grow. Furthermore, better sorting technologies paired with the effort of EPR systems and sorting centres generate mono-material streams, gradually decreasing mixed polyolefin fraction.
To pursue these positive trends, industry players must seek out at long-term solutions rather than ‘quick fixes’ that could prove detrimental, Emans added citing the Quality Recycling Process developed by Ceflex as an example. Such short-term solutions are ‘not in line with the objective of making flexible packaging household waste fully circular’ and could ‘jeopardise well-established and well-functioning recycling processes [and] generate additional tonnages of mixed polyolefins’, according to a PRE press release.
Emans added: “Processes which propose only 20 per cent of the recycled film back to film applications and 80 per cent to injection moulding are a step backwards for our industry as they are not aligned with the principles of the circular economy. It will never be a profitable business case.”
The PRE President concluded that if the industry is to transform flexible plastic waste management, the focus must be on further optimising and advancing the already well-performing processes and solutions to produce the highest quality of recycled material, driving the uptake of recyclates in film applications.