PETpla.net Insider 09 / 2021

47 EVENT REVIEW PETplanet Insider Vol. 22 The future starts in our heads Discover our digital innovations at krones.com In the subsequent Q & A session with the audience, the options for recycling food trays were discussed. These are not yet very widespread but according to Dr Rehrmann, Tomra is also working on solutions for tray-2- tray recycling. Tray-2-bottle is also an option; a prototype PET bottle devel- opment has just been manufactured from recycled food trays and was shown during the event. The question was also raised of how influential a circular economy system could be at a European level when this is actually a global problem. Joe Papineschi responded: “The develop- ments and systems can be applied around the world. If a 2.8 billion tonne CO 2 reduction is to be achieved, there must be some fun- damental rethinking about environmental matters. We are doing a great deal in Europe in terms of tech- nology and policy, and these applications can be adopted with appropri- ate adjustments. Europe is certainly far from being the template for the world as there is still a great deal of inconsistency here. But with appropriate adapta- tion for other parts of the world, these things can definitely function and there is an incredible amount of potential. Also, it could be started there immediately, as the whole learning and development process has broadly been completed and already exists here in Europe. The political will to take action is of course also important in other countries. A fundamental re-think as regards sustainability and recycling is necessary but this must also be identified and appropriately regu- lated.” Emission, kg CO 2 equivalent per tonne of waste managed. Source: Eunomia