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Name of the Director who has cleared the briefing: Joaquim Nunes de Almeida
BASIS request ID: 8244 Name of main contact person:
Fiche d'entretien
WHO
PlasticsEurope (
)
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PlasticsEurope
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PlasticsEurope
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INEOS Olefins & Polymers Europe North
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Braskem
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SABIC
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ExxonMobil
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PlasticsEurope
WHEN
21 Sept. 2021, 11:00 am
WHERE
Online
WHY
A business case for low-carbon and circular plastics
The plastics producers (petro-chemicals and chemicals) are under heavy pressure
to 1) recycle more and reduce plastic pol ution; and 2) decarbonise.
Chemical recycling of plastic waste is a possible new growth opportunity; however,
the business case wil heavily depend from the EU policy framework.
We agreed on the below agenda points with PlasticsEurope.
MESSAGE
1. Transition to climate-neutral and circular plastics
• Plastics recycling has significant CO2 reduction potential. It is essential to
position plastics recycling (including chemical recycling) within the broader
pathway to circular and carbon-neutral plastics (
cf. agenda point 2).
• We look forward to the results of the
Systemiq study commissioned by
PlasticsEurope (and are available for the Steering Committee btw
1).
• A large part of the pathway is common to plastics and the broader chemicals
industry (cf. low-carbon production). However, there are also issues specific to
plastics that require deep cooperation along the value chain (mainly circular
economy aspects i.e. plastic waste management, reduction and reuse).
• The
Circular Plastics Alliance can be a good platform to share the results of the
Systemiq study and start build a consensus around the broader transition
pathway for plastics.
2. Chemical recycling
• Mechanical recycling will not be sufficient to deal with all plastic waste.
Chemical recycling is a necessary
complement. The question is how to
implement this complementarity in practice.
• There should be a clear framework ensuring fair competition, i.a. technology-
neutral and taking into account
CO2 emissions.
• DG GROW has commissioned a
study to the JRC to compare plastic waste
management options (environmental, technical and economic). PlasticsEurope
members are contributing actively, this should continue.
•
1 Only DG ENV represents the Commission so far
1
Name of the Director who has cleared the briefing: Joaquim Nunes de Almeida
BASIS request ID: 8244 Name of main contact person:
• We plan to issue a voluntary
standardisation request on recycled plastics,
covering design-for-recycling of plastic products, quality of sorted waste and
quality of recycled plastics. The question is how this standardisation work takes
chemical recycling into account. A key objective should be to
translate EU
standards and methods into international standards for the global market.
3. Single Market
•
• Our vision is that of
a single market for sorted plastic waste and for recycled
plastics, with high quality and traceability of the materials within Europe.
• European initiatives like the Circular Plastics Alliance, where the whole plastics
value chain and the Member States can agree at EU level on a credible vision
for circular plastics and take joint action to implement the EU plastics strategy
on the ground, can play a role to limit fragmented national initiatives. So far,
the CPA does not include many national authorities; we need to work on this.
4. Circular Plastics Alliance (CPA)
• PlasticsEurope has played a leading role in the CPA so far and we hope to this
engagement continued.
• The CPA should continue to support the transition to circular plastics. This
requires accelerating the cooperation with national stakeholders and
authorities, to
reinforce the articulation between the CPA roadmap and
national strategies (with a focus on waste collection, investments and recycled
content in products).
•
•
Note: the CPA cannot discuss future policy targets or legislation (not a
registered expert group) but only take operational action to implement pre-
defined policy objectives.
5. 5th session of United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) and Global
Plastics Agreement
• We are well aware of the importance of this work, however DG GROW is not
actively involved
2 Method to calculate recycled content in plastics from chemical recycling (see background for further details)
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