PlasticsEurope Launches Industry Initiative to Drive Innovative Recycling Solutions for Polystyrene
-
Pro-active
industry collaboration to address circular economy
- Consumer waste to be turned into polystyrene
ultimately for food-related uses
PlasticsEurope
launched today an initiative to promote innovative recycling solutions for
Polystyrene, in a push to support the European Union’s circular economy plan. The
group aims to engage the value chain in the development and
industrialization of promising new recycling technologies.
Focusing
on chemical recycling, the PlasticsEurope initiative aims at converting
collected post-consumer polystyrene waste into virgin polystyrene. New technologies
will enable the incorporation of post-consumer waste into plastic manufacturers’
production processes. The target is to generate high-quality polystyrene to
meet the most demanding standards, ultimately for food contact applications.
"These
technologies, through an extensive collaboration along the value chain, will
provide efficient and sustainable solutions to today’s environmental
challenges”, said Norbert Niessner, Chairman of the Chemical Recycling Working
Group after its kick-off meeting.
"The
initiative paves the way to increasing the circularity of plastics. Finding new
ways to recycle represents an increased opportunity to save valuable resources
for future generations and avoid plastics ending up in landfills” said Karl-H.
Foerster, Executive Director, PlasticsEurope. "New recycling technologies can further
enhance the recovery of high value feedstock from consumer waste”, he
explained.
The initiative is part of the
activities announced by PlasticsEurope at the K2016 to maximize the fullest potential of plastics in
delivering resource efficiency gains within the circular economy.