The “Big Challenge” of plastic recycling to take centre stage at conference

Challenges around plastics recycling will be the key focus of discussion at an upcoming industry conference.

The “Big Challenge” for the plastics industry will be the theme of the presentation from Prof. Dr. jur. Helmut Maurer, the latest confirmed speaker at RECOUP’s annual recycling event.

Dr Maurer believes that it is clear that the industry needs to act urgently as in developing countries plastics either end up in landfill or in nature. 

Maurer is a supporter of a global landfill ban and believes that this is the only way to prevent influxes of millions of tonnes of plastic from ending up in our oceans and breaking down into micro-plastics. 

“We need to talk globally – oceans don’t have borders, however we also need to be working on the chemistry of plastics materials,” Maurer said.    

“Products need to be made with materials that are designed to be recycled and do not contain toxic additives that can make recycling difficult.

“Where plastic is used in more complex consumer products it must not facilitate early obsolescence; products must be designed to be refurbished and to be repairable.

“Producers know their material best and for recyclers it is extremely important to have that same knowledge, so there is a lot to be done to facilitate this knowledge transfer.  Yet there are plenty of things that can be done to enhance domestic plastic recycling, by setting targets to recycle more, and by creating incentives for high-quality recycling and by increasing the supply side through better separate collection and a landfill ban for separately collected plastic waste.”

Stuart Foster, CEO of RECOUP said: “This is such an important year for the European Commission with the ongoing development of the Circular Economy package. Following an excellent presentation at our 2014 event, we are delighted that Dr Maurer will be joining the debate at the RECOUP Plastics Recycling Conference on 29th September 2016. It promises to be a thought provoking day.”

More information on the event can be found here: www.recoup.org/conference-2016.