PETpla.net Insider 04 / 2019

MATERIALS / RECYCLING PET planet Insider Vol. 20 No. 04/19 www.petpla.net 22 Petcore Europe Conference 2019 EU Plastics Strategy 2.0 Recycling Special Under the theme “EU Plastics Strat- egy 2.0 - Taking the PET industry to the next step”, the complete PET industry sector shared perspectives and strate- gies for a succesful and even more circular future. From PET resin produc- ers, masterbatch producers, packaging designers and manufacturers, equip- ment manufacturers, label producers to major brand owners, EPR schemes, waste management organisations, recyclers, waste sorting and recycling machinery manufacturers - the entire value chain was represented. Addition- ally, speakers and participants from the European Commission (DG GROW), the European Parlimanet as well as ICIS shared their thoughts on the PET market as well as the plastics industry in the European Circular Economy. Mr Christian Crépet, Managing Director Petcore Europe Day 1 - PET market & strategy Susan Mair from ICIS gave an over- view of the PET collection and recy- cling rates for 2017 as well as the key drivers of the market. According to ICIS “there is an under utilised PET recycling capacity of 300.000t due to a lack of material coming from collection pro- cesses”. Following the market assess- ment by ICIS, Alessandra Funcia, Head of Sales and Marketing Sukano, presented Petcore Europe’s programs of two major working groups: PET Thermoforms and Opaque & Difficult to recycle PET containers. After the introduction, experts from the PET value chain gave presentations detailing the market overview. Steve Scott, Chairman of the Com- mittee of PET Manufacturers Europe (CPME), addressed the PET market from the perspectives of the Euro- pean PET producers perspective. He stressed the importance of chemical or back-to-monomer recycling and the essential role PET producers will play to achieve it. Marc De Voogd, General Manager of Alpla France and Iberia, gave a converter’s vision for the future in his presentation. Accordingly the demand for post-consumer recycled PET will increase drastically by 2025 which is the challenge for the whole industry. Casper van den Dungen, Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE) in the last presentation of this section gave an outlook on recycled PET up until 2030. The main points are firstly the Single Use Plastics Directive (SUP) will be the driver for the PET value developments and secondly the PET bottle collection is required to improve considerably to reach the 77% collection target in 2025. Casper concluded the presentation with a call to the recycling industry: “Use the momentum to create the difference.” Day 2 - Circularity and trends in recycling - EU Plastics Strategy 2.0 A significant highlight of the confer- ence was the presentation of the Euro- pean Strategy for Plastics in the circular economy by Laure Baillargeon from the European Commission - DG GROW. She gave insights in the newly launched Circular Plastics Alliance and stressed the fact that the European Commission is fully supportive of the plastics industry in delivering on the collection and reuse rates of plastics. It was also empha- sised that the whole aspect of Life Cycle Analysis would be compared in decision making for preferred packag- ing alternatives. In summary, Christian Crépet, Executive Director of Petcore Europe, stressed the importance of collaboration between the industry and policy makers and congratulated DG GROW for the Circular Plastics Alliance initiative. Samuele Furfari (ULB) followed with a state-of-the-art presentation on the changing world of energy. Accord- ing to the professor, who can look back at a long career in the European Commission where he implemented various energy policies and sustainable development, there is no new energy paradigm. The often predicted end of oil is not apparent. Mike Neal on behalf of CPME, fol- lowed Samuele Furfari with an enlight- ening presentation concerning the regulatory perspective on the PET value chain. Trends and solutions in PET collection and recycling In the afternoon session of day two, the focus shifted to trends and solutions in the PET post-consumer collection. First, Gian de Belder, Petcore Europe ODR Working Group Chair- man, from Procter & Gamble pre- sented the Holy Grail project on markers and digital watermarks. Gian also gave an interesting overview of the five pillars for a circular economy: design for recycling, access to collec- tion, participation/education, separa- tion and product innovation. Gian was followed by Clarissa Morawski from Reloop, who gave an update about the current developments in deposit Each year the European PET value chain meets in Brus- sels for the annual Petcore Europe Conference. Due to its continued success over recent past, this year the two day conference was held at a new venue to welcome more than 280 industry delegates. On February 6-7, 2019 more than 280 delegates from the entire PET value chain from Europe and beyond gathered in the Renaissance Brussels Hotel, adjacent to the European Parliament Area of Brussels.