On the evening of Thursday 31 March 2022 RSC Belgium will present a webinar talk from Henk Pool of Cefic on Chemical recycling: Enabling plastic waste to become a valuable resource.
“Every year, Europeans generate 25 million tonnes of plastic waste, but less than 30% is collected for recycling” states the 2018 European Plastics Strategy.
The EU Green Deal is at the heart of the EU’s ambitions of becoming climate neutral. To meet the ambitious European objectives, much more plastic waste needs to be collected, sorted and prepared for recycling and a broader range of markets need to be supplied with plastic products containing recycled content. The European ambition to transition from a linear economy towards a sustainable circular economy calls for an array of complementary innovative recycling solutions and business models. Chemical recycling enables the production of chemicals including plastics from End-of-Life plastic waste streams currently being incinerated, landfilled or exported.
Over the last decades, recycling of plastics was mostly limited to plastic waste streams which were relatively easy to collect and recycle through mechanical recycling. For packaging this led to overall plastic recycling rate of 41%. Yet still today, a large part of plastic waste ends up in landfill or incineration. To further increase plastic recycling, other and complementary recycling routes will be required to process plastics that are difficult to be handled in mechanical recycling processes. Chemical recycling can thus fill a void in the plastics recycling loop, conserve valuable resources, and contribute to the creation of a low-carbon circular economy. Chemical recycling technologies allow the use of plastic waste as feedstock for the chemical industry and replace fossil feedstock materials to produce new chemicals including plastics. Chemical recycling can upgrade the quality and produce secondary feedstock materials that are equivalent to virgin resources. Chemical recycling also has the potential to remove undesired additives and impurities allowing the use as recycled content in high-demanding applications such as food contact materials or medical applications.
In this webinar Henk will clarify the different recycling options and routes for plastic waste; position the EU policy framework and its developments; and discuss progress made and the need for collaboration in technology development, value chain – market development, and policy development.
Henk Pool is Senior Innovation Manager with Cefic the voice of the chemical industry in Europe. Henk joined Cefic’s Innovation department in February 2016 as a secondee from the industry. His responsibilities include innovation programmes and EU regulation relevant to chemical recycling of plastic waste, and innovation programmes regarding water and raw materials. He has spent 35 years of his professional career in various roles in the chemical industry. Henk holds a Master’s degree in engineering from the Twente University of Technology in the Netherlands.
As usual prior registration for this event via this link is required. Details of how to access the event will only be sent to registered participants on the day of the talk. The talk will start at 19h30 CET.
“Every year, Europeans generate 25 million tonnes of plastic waste, but less than 30% is collected for recycling” states the 2018 European Plastics Strategy.
The EU Green Deal is at the heart of the EU’s ambitions of becoming climate neutral. To meet the ambitious European objectives, much more plastic waste needs to be collected, sorted and prepared for recycling and a broader range of markets need to be supplied with plastic products containing recycled content. The European ambition to transition from a linear economy towards a sustainable circular economy calls for an array of complementary innovative recycling solutions and business models. Chemical recycling enables the production of chemicals including plastics from End-of-Life plastic waste streams currently being incinerated, landfilled or exported.
Over the last decades, recycling of plastics was mostly limited to plastic waste streams which were relatively easy to collect and recycle through mechanical recycling. For packaging this led to overall plastic recycling rate of 41%. Yet still today, a large part of plastic waste ends up in landfill or incineration. To further increase plastic recycling, other and complementary recycling routes will be required to process plastics that are difficult to be handled in mechanical recycling processes. Chemical recycling can thus fill a void in the plastics recycling loop, conserve valuable resources, and contribute to the creation of a low-carbon circular economy. Chemical recycling technologies allow the use of plastic waste as feedstock for the chemical industry and replace fossil feedstock materials to produce new chemicals including plastics. Chemical recycling can upgrade the quality and produce secondary feedstock materials that are equivalent to virgin resources. Chemical recycling also has the potential to remove undesired additives and impurities allowing the use as recycled content in high-demanding applications such as food contact materials or medical applications.
In this webinar Henk will clarify the different recycling options and routes for plastic waste; position the EU policy framework and its developments; and discuss progress made and the need for collaboration in technology development, value chain – market development, and policy development.
Henk Pool is Senior Innovation Manager with Cefic the voice of the chemical industry in Europe. Henk joined Cefic’s Innovation department in February 2016 as a secondee from the industry. His responsibilities include innovation programmes and EU regulation relevant to chemical recycling of plastic waste, and innovation programmes regarding water and raw materials. He has spent 35 years of his professional career in various roles in the chemical industry. Henk holds a Master’s degree in engineering from the Twente University of Technology in the Netherlands.
As usual prior registration for this event via this link is required. Details of how to access the event will only be sent to registered participants on the day of the talk. The talk will start at 19h30 CET.
