Latest news
The plastic recycling paradox
The demand for recycled plastic is increasing as legislation is tightened. In the near future, plastic packaging must contain a certain percentage of recycled material. But today, the recycled plastic is generally of too low a quality. It's called the plastic recycling paradox*.
Plastic is a good packaging material. But it is also a recycling dilemma. Today, only half of all plastic packaging is designed to be recycled and only about ten percent is recycled.
The waste in our households is enormous. Half of all plastic packaging is never sorted out by consumers, but ends up in household waste and incinerated. Plastic combustion accounts for six percent of our total CO2 emissions.
Great demand
At the same time, the market is crying out for recycled plastic. But until now, the availability of recycled plastic of sufficiently high quality has been too small to meet the needs. Here, a major change must take place to meet the EU’s new legislation, PPWR, which is expected to enter into force in 2025.
As early as 2030, 55 percent of all plastic packaging placed on the market must be recycled, and the packaging that does not come into contact with food must contain at least 35 percent recycled material. The goal is for all plastic to become circular and replace new withdrawals of crude oil.
So where will all this recycled circular plastic come from?
At recycling facilities in Europe today, you can usually only recycle up to four plastic fractions. Sweden is better off. At Swedish Plastic Recycling’s new facility Site Zero in Motala, capacity has been more than doubled compared to before, from five to twelve plastic fractions.
Read the article about Site Zero
In addition to recycling more plastic fractions, you also need to sort and recycle each type of plastic separately. In this way, the need for fossil raw materials is reduced, less and less material is incinerated and the plastic’s climate footprint is radically reduced.
*Source: A number of seminars and lectures, with SPÅ as the sender, among others.
This article is part of NPA Magasin
More Latest news
Why is it so important that each packaging material can be source‑separated and recycled in clean material streams?
The answer is that, for packaging to be considered suitable for high-quality material recycling, the materials must be easy to separate. Materials should not be mixed or contaminated by other material types and should preferably be made from mono-materials. Watch the film to learn what to consider when designing packaging for maximum material recycling.
English report summary now available
Now there is an English summary of the report "Will Sweden reach the recycling targets for packaging 2030?"
New training supports better waste sorting in apartment buildings
There is now a digital training course that provides knowledge and concrete advice to get the sorting points in apartment buildings in order and create better conditions for residents to sort their waste correctly.