Plastics distributor Albis GmbH spoke with BKV managing director Rainer Mantel about the current legal framework, legal developments and their consequences for companies in the plastics industry. According to Mantel, the common goal of all directives is to strengthen reuse, reduce the amount of waste, increase the recycling of plastic waste, increase the use of secondary raw materials in the manufacture of new products made of plastic and, with all these measures, ultimately minimize undesirable inputs of plastics into the environment. With regard to the EU Commission's announcement that it will propose binding recyclate use quotas for plastic packaging by the end of this year, Mantel refers in the interview to the results of a study by the Society for Packaging Market Research (GVM), according to which it would be possible to double the use of recyclates by 2025 under realistic conditions. In order for sufficient recyclates of the required quality to be available, more waste would have to be fed into a recycling process, the quality of the recyclates would have to be increased and the landfilling of plastic waste would have to be ended. According to Mantel, chemical recycling of waste that is unsuitable for mechanical recycling could also contribute to an increase in the supply of high-quality recyclates in the medium term. A study by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) for the BKV showed that these processes could be competitive with thermal recycling on a large scale. Ultimately, according to Mantel, the aim is to keep the carbon in the plastic largely in the cycle. Recycling has a key role to play here. But the use of CO₂ could also certainly make a contribution in the long term.

 

Further information: to the entire interview (in German language only)

 

Sources:

• albis.com (9/13/2021)
• Photo: © BKV