Restrictions and misunderstanding about chemical recycling will mislead a transformation of European waste policy, said Chemical Recycling Europe (ChemRecEurope, Brussels / Belgium; www.chemicalrecyclingeurope.eu). The association, set up in 2019 to promote chemical recycling technologies, said while it supports many of the “ambitious directions” set out in Zero Waste Europe’s (ZWE, Brussels; www.zerowasteeurope.eu) “10 priorities to transform EU Waste Policy”, the restrictions in priority 9 represent “missed opportunities.”

Priority 9 in the NGO’s list relates to setting the right legal framework to ensure that chemical recycling does not undermine more circular approaches in the waste hierarchy or cause adverse environmental impacts. It also states that input should be restricted to degraded and contaminated plastics – never plastics from a separate collection –- and output limited to new plastics, not fuel.

ChemRecEurope has set out five key points of clarification. The first is that, in its view, chemical recycling is by definition circular as it enables the direct replacement of virgin material with product of identical quality and properties sourced from plastics waste that is not currently recyclable.

The association also stressed that there should be no restrictions on both input characteristics and origin. It pointed out that chemical recycling input naturally falls into a category that tends to be contaminated and/or degraded. Additionally, some plastics are more complex and are not economically viable for mechanical recycling. Therefore, it believes that opening broader waste streams to chemical recycling would complement existing mechanical recycling efforts.

The requirement to exclude plastics from a separate collection would also mean that rejected material from mechanical recycling streams would not be captured by chemical recycling, which represents a significant amount of waste, ChemRecEurope said. It also noted that mechanical recyclers are not able to process some separate collection streams such as EPS and LDPE.

The association believes too that the proposed limitations on input characteristics and origin are also inconsistent with Zero Waste Europe’s priority 10, which seeks to phase out incineration. The restrictions, said ChemRecEurope, imply that the NGO implicitly favours the waste being sent for energy generation.

Finally, chemical recycling technologies are said to target a “new demand”. The association explained that they specifically target demand for virgin-quality recycled content that cannot be filled by mechanical recycling, which currently can only fulfil demand for PET and HDPE.

Despite its concerns, ChemRecEurope did however state its support for many of the priorities, which were published last November. In particular, it welcomed those for preventing and reducing waste, stopping waste shipments to non-EU countries, expanding extended producer responsibility beyond packaging and clarifying the definition and framework for chemical recycling.

The chemical recycling organisation has previously called for constructive collaboration with the waste management industry to increase recycling (see Plasteurope.com of 22.04.2020).

Earlier this year, environmental group Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (Gaia, Berkeley, California / USA; www.no-burn.org) published a report critical of chemical recycling technologies (see Plasteurope.com of 23.06.2020).