How the EU can enable a circular economy in plastic packaging – POLITICO | Daily News Byte

The European Green Deal sets a clear direction towards the decarbonisation of Europe by 2050 and the transition to a circular economy. Plastics and packaging have been identified as key value chains with significant circularity potential that will require further regulatory measures to reduce their environmental impact.

The private sector has a key role to play, supported by policies that encourage innovation, encourage the adoption of sustainable technologies and ensure legal certainty so that private investment goes where it is most needed. For example, the packaging value chain is innovating to develop new alternatives such as flexible bag packaging, which reduces the carbon footprint of packaged goods compared to rigid materials. Initially, these bags were not easily recyclable, but thanks to innovation, they are now designed to be recycled. In addition, a thriving ecosystem of European startups is developing technologies such as chemical recycling, which can complement traditional mechanical recycling to ensure that more packaging is recycled. Ambitious targets for recycled content, including those for food contact packaging, and legal recognition of these new technologies are essential to support Europe’s leading role in achieving circularity.

Encouraging innovation through progressive regulation

Chemical recycling is a set of technologies that offer solutions where mechanical recycling has limitations. This is particularly relevant for high-performance regulated applications — such as food and automotive — where mechanical recycling cannot achieve recycled content targets due to performance limitations and regulatory constraints. The use of recycled plastics in food packaging, with the exception of PET bottles, presents a particular challenge given the strict legal requirements to protect the safety of materials in contact with food.

The only way to meet the recycling targets for flexible food packaging will be to use chemical recycling, which turns plastic waste back into raw material, replacing fossil-based feedstock. This ensures that food packaging can be recreated as food packaging. In addition to solving the issue of plastic waste, chemical recycling reduces the need for virgin fossil raw materials, further improving the carbon footprint of plastics.

Increasing chemical recycling will be key to addressing the use of recycled plastics in the nine million tonnes of demand for polyethylene and polypropylene in food packaging in the EU today, which is expected to increase with revised packaging rules. Consumer goods companies have already said they will collectively aim to buy 800,000 tonnes of chemically recycled packaging material in 2030, a signal of how critical these technologies are to packaging circularity in Europe.

To help meet the growing demand for recycled plastics, Dov has partnered with and invested in several startup companies across Europe to develop and expand chemical recycling. In France, we are supporting Valoregen in developing the country’s first plant that combines mechanical and chemical recycling to achieve optimal results in line with the EU waste hierarchy. Across Europe and the US, in partnership with Mura Technology, we aim to build multiple advanced world-class recycling facilities with a shared goal of 600,000 tons of annual recycling capacity globally by 2030. This will help meet Dov’s goal of accelerating circular ecosystem by transforming waste and alternative raw materials to deliver three million metric tons per year of circular and renewable solutions by 2030. The first factory will be in Bellen, Germany, co-located with our production site to improve yields and save greenhouse gases, and should to be operational in 2025.

In addition to treating chemical recycling as a valid technology, we need legal recognition of the mass balance approach. It allows us to measure how much recycled or bio-based raw materials go into our offer, so we know how many of our products can be considered recycled or bio-based. Ultimately, this will help us realize our net-zero roadmap to reduce reliance on fossil fuels — increasing the use of circular and renewable carbon sources — which will keep carbon in the loop for longer.

A good example of mass balance is the energy transition, which is made possible by using a similar approach: energy companies sell renewable energy, but not every electron comes from renewable sources. The important point is that the total power system sells only as much renewable energy as is actually produced. In this way, gradual scaling with the existing infrastructure is possible. Using existing infrastructure is important to enable circular transformation in an affordable way for consumers and with lower environmental impacts. The provided energy comes from a mix of renewable and non-renewable sources, which enables a constant growth of the share of renewable electricity.

Similarly, scaling chemical recycling will only be possible if it can be seamlessly integrated into existing infrastructure. The mass balance calculation system will enable this. The recognition of this methodology as valid is currently in the hands of EU policy makers. Formal recognition will help to maximize the use of recycled content and meet EU recycling rates as well as the obligations of many brand manufacturers in a fast, traceable and efficient way. The approach adopted must be in line with the EU’s waste hierarchy — that is, it should not allow the use of waste for fuel as recycling.

The circularity of plastics will also require investment in improving the collection and sorting of plastic waste to ensure access to high-quality waste in large quantities. In this context, the cross-border movement of waste within the single market is of crucial importance. Only a regulatory framework coherently applied across the EU can enable companies to maximize investment towards a net-zero circular economy, promoting innovation and preserving the global competitiveness of European industry.

We look to policymakers to put in place a framework that will enable a rapid transition to a truly circular economy across the EU, as the decisions we make today will shape the industries of tomorrow.