PETpla.net Insider 11+12 / 2017

imprint EDITORIAL PUBLISHER Alexander Büchler, Managing Director HEAD OFFICE heidelberg business media GmbH Bunsenstr. 14 69115 Heidelberg, Germany phone: +49 6221-65108-0 fax: +49 6221-65108-28 info@hbmedia.net EDITORIAL Kay Barton Heike Fischer Gabriele Kosmehl Michael Maruschke Ruari McCallion Waldemar Schmitke Anthony Withers WikiPETia.info petplanet@hbmedia.net MEDIA CONSULTANTS Martina Hirschmann hirschmann@hbmedia.net Johann Lange-Brock lange-brock@hbmedia.net phone: +49 6221-65108-0 fax: +49 6221-65108-28 LAYOUT AND PREPRESS EXPRIM Werbeagentur Matthias Gaumann | www.exprim.de READER SERVICES Till Kretner reader@hbmedia.net PRINT Chroma Druck & Verlag GmbH Werkstr. 25 67354 Römerberg Germany WWW www.hbmedia.net | w ww.petpla.net PETplanet Insider ISSN 1438-9459 is published 10 times a year. This publication is sent to qualified subscribers (1-year subscription 149 EUR, 2-year subscription 289 EUR, Young professionals’ sub- scription 99 EUR. Magazines will be dispatched to you by airmail). Not to be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. Note: The fact that product names may not be identified as trademarks is not an indication that such names are not registered trademarks. 3 PET planet Insider Vol. 18 No. 11+12/17 www.petpla.net China bans imported waste, including PET waste China is serious about clamping down on environmental pollution. The closure of a large number of “dirty” industries in and around large urban areas is now being followed by a ban on the importation of recy- clable waste. For the most part, this relates to the very environmentally damaging recycling of electronic waste but it has also affected plastics – and therefore PET. Mr Xie Zhenhua, leader of the Chinese delegation at the annual cli- mate conference, explained somewhat self-critically what it was all about in an interview with Der Spiegel on 15.11.2017: “For China, economic development is the key to solving all of our problems. But at the same time, we must tackle poverty, ensure social equality, create more jobs, improve people’s health – and therefore protect the environment. There is quite a lot for us to do! In some areas, we have driven the economy forward but neglected to protect the environment. Our relatively rough development model and our technical backwardness have led to heavier environmental pollution and caused ecological damage.” Just as the Chinese are energetically building an enormous high- speed train network or constructing new airports throughout the entire country, so now environmental pollution, and primarily air pollution, is to be prioritised. For every nation around the world, this now means that the recyclable waste mountains must be processed somewhere else, ideally within each nation itself. For PET there is surely sufficient capacity; all our on-site research shows that recyclers are lamenting the shortage of PET bottles. However, the legal provisions must also be clear and of course relevant to the situation in the real-world. What use is legislation that is hard to comply with - which stipulates that only a small proportion of bottles from the non-food sector may be recycled - if modern recycling technology can process even non-food bottles into food grade material? The lack of legal provisions to divert flows of PET from China to indi- vidual countries is a greater barrier than a lack of recycling capacity. Yours, Alexander Büchler Dear friends of PETplaner Insider,