The COVID-19 pandemic brought a massive amount of uncertainty to our lives. Starting with constant worry about the health and safety of our relatives, friends or colleagues, to everyday life insecurities in terms of work or taking care of our children or daily chores.
Plastics Recyclers Europe
Recycling and resilience
Ton Emans
This situation has severely impacted us in almost every sphere. It has impacted the way we work, disrupted production – even putting it completely on hold for several months.
For plastics recyclers, the consequences of lockdowns resulted in disruptions in waste availability, the availability of workers, lowered demand and, most importantly, the record-low price for virgin polymers driving recyclates’ margins to the minimum.
That is why I would like to give my recognition to companies who, despite the unprecedented circumstances, continued to run their facilities and did everything possible to ensure the safety of their employees. Your resilience helped us make the voice of plastics recycling heard, even in the face of turbulent times. I thank you for that.
Environmental issues still high on the agenda
Despite this difficult period, one thing remains clear – the EU continues to work towards its environmental ambitions, and has further reinforced its stance with the Green Deal objectives, which are still top of the agenda.
The European Commission, with its post-pandemic green recovery plan, has reinsured our industry by securing the financial aid for the sector. This is great news for the ongoing and planned investments that will give a further boost for innovation and additional capacities that are necessary to reach the recycling targets.
World online
The pandemic also prevented us from meeting and networking in a traditional way. Social distancing took away the ‘human’ aspect of our job. But there is hope. Hope for coming back to a ‘new normal’ and the possibility to meet face to face.
Now with the vaccination being rolled out all over Europe, our continent prepares for a slow restart. The numerous industry events are re-scheduled at the different locations with the strictest hygiene and social distancing regime and often balancing the new hybrid online/physical approach. These developments, I am hopeful, will allow us to meet face to face at the industry events planned for this autumn.
One of the focal events of our industry, the Plastics Recycling Show Europe, is planned for 4-5 November in Amsterdam. We are looking forward to seeing you in person at this and many other events, where we can debate and share the latest market information and technological developments of the plastic recycling industry.