“The 30 million tons of plastic are collected every year in Europe and only 15% of it is recycled. That means 85% of it is not recycled, contributing to CO2 emission or just landfill. I think there is a huge potential for the raw material from the waste. Though this shift will not be easy, chemical recycling will play an important role apart from the defined regulatory framework, says Dr. Daniel Witthaut, Executive Director - Innovation, Cefic. 

He was speaking at the "Digital Dialogue-From waste to resources: How can chemical recycling accelerate the creation of a circular economy for plastics?" organized by Cefic. 

“At Eastman, we believe in a true circular solution. It is material to material and not material to fuel. It is complementary to mechanical recycling and prevents landfill or incineration and produces products with equivalent or better performance relative to the original process. Reduces the amount of new fossil feedstocks that would otherwise need to be extracted. Has a carbon footprint better than the original manufacturing process for the same product,” says Inari Seppa, Technical Innovation Director & Circular Economy Leader, Eastman Chemicals. 

“The solution has to be reducing, reusing and eventually recycling. We support reducing and making minimal use of plastic until complete phasing out. Chemical recycling is not just one technology but an umbrella of technologies. Similarly, plastics are not just one material but as an assembly of materials. Optimal way of recycling, be it mechanical recycling is brilliant but when you start mixing materials there are issues. In case of pyrolysis, fossil fuels can be replaced by mixed plastics. Hydrocarbons can be used to make many things and those technologies are up and running. The big question is how do we get all the plastic in the environment in one place and use it for recycling,” added Seppa. 

“Circular economy has an umbrella of targets including making the municipal waste available to recycling, packaging plastic waste recycling and more. Electronics, building materials and other packages EU legislations. Reduction of plastics by 25% by 2025. Can be both challenging for the industry as well as full of opportunity. Waste prevention in the first place and then look into the reusable. From the commission perspective, I think it is important to keep in mind that there is mechanical recycling among other existing technologies. How do we make sure that there is enough data on chemical recycling and environmental impact. Legal framework matters and therefore, it is important to remember that recycled material must come from recycled. As of now there is no clear view on the implementation and it should be a way for complimenting mechanical recycling. How to ensure that on the ground. We have not sought any splitting of recycling targets. We need to have assurance from industry to see how you would like to implement the same,” says Rana Pant, Policy Officer, DG - Environment, European Commission. 

“In the light of the risk posed by growing climate impact, the urgency of driving circularity has never been higher. Greenhouse gas emissions from the plastic lifecycle threaten the ability of the global community to keep temperature rise below 15 degree Celsius. By 2050, the greenhouse gas emissions from plastic could represent 10-13 percent of the entire remaining carbon budget. Reducing the burden by pyrolysis and gasification recovery, rather than recycling is critical. Pyrolysis is a part of recovery and not recycling. Support upstream innovation not an expensive and high carbon lock-in situation. We need to focus on actual recyclability of plastics, phase out hard to recycle plastics, chemical recovery should be the last resort. It is clear that actual recycling and chemical recovery should not be used as an excuse for delay in the recycling,” says Janek Vahk, Climate, Energy and Air Pollution Programme Coordinator, Zero Waste Europe.

“In line with the European Green Deal and EU's decarbonization agenda, the EU should uphold the precautionary principle and put in place the right policy framework for chemical recycling and recovery technologies. This should be done to avoid loopholes preventing the achievement of objectives related to EU circular economy, climate and sustainable chemical policies. Environmental and health impacts of chemical recycling and recovery need to be evaluated at the industrial level prior to incentivization. Clarifying the legal status of chemical recycling and recovery technologies in the waste hierarchy is important. There is also a need to put in place safeguards to avoid competition with mechanically recyclable waste,” adds Vahk. 

“Most of the plastics in the market are not recyclable today. As of now it is possible to close the loop in terms of recycling only for PET, rest is not possible. For our food and beverages industry, we need innovation to propose alternative delivery models to our consumers. For them the choice is beyond single use plastics. We need innovation in materials and in recycling to enable the recycling of plastics, especially closed loop recycling. This is where chemical recycling can play a role. We think this also comes with some principles. Those materials for feedstock for chemical recycling should not be diverted from mechanical recycling as there are many places where only this works. We need to ensure the environmental impact of the chemical recycling technologies as there are different sets and also position them against virgin plastics. We also need to determine the role of chemicals in meeting the recycling target. We need the standards and protocols to specify the products and their contribution. We need to increase the recycled content in packaging and clarify the regulatory framework. Once there is a regulatory framework, we will have enough technologies and investments into it,” says Youssef Chtourou, Global Circular Economy Director, Danone.