Voluntary pledges from recycling companies under the EU Plastics Strategy would provide enough recycled plastics to meet the EU target by 2025, according to the Commission's preliminary assessment published on Tuesday 20 November.
The pledging campaign focused on recycling 10 million tonnes of plastics into new products in Europe. It was announced last January when this strategy was presented, aiming to ensure that 100% of plastic packaging placed on the EU market is recyclable or reusable by 2030 (see EUROPE 12092, 11940).
The main pledges, out of the 65 received by the institution, came from plastics recyclers, industry associations for Expanded Polystyrene and brand owners mainly for PET packaging.
The Commission is now carrying out a more detailed study of these pledges to analyse their impact per plastic types on supply and demand aspects.
The results of this in-depth analysis will be published in the first quarter of 2019. They will identify gaps between supply (recyclers) and demand (producers, converters and manufacturers) and guide future actions.
An assessment of regulatory or economic incentives in targeted sectors such as automotive, construction and packaging is underway.
The Commission encourages other companies that are preparing their pledges to submit them, even though the campaign ended on 30 September. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)