At the Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE, Brussels / Belgium; www.plasticsrecyclers.eu) annual meeting in Barcelona / Spain on 15 June, brand owners demonstrated their efforts in integrating recyclates in their products and said marketing and design were crucial factors for advancing a circular economy for plastics.

According to PRE president Ton Emans, plastic material is at a turning point towards becoming circular. “High-quality recycling and integrating more recyclates in new products will help in accelerating that shift,” he said, adding that policy makers such as the European Commission (www.ec.europa.eu) and the Waste Agency of Catalonia (www.bcnecologia.net) have ambitious plans for enabling the transition.

Brand owners that spoke at the June conference include HP (www.hp.com), Weleda (www.weleda.com), Danone (www.danone.com), Coca-Cola (www.coca-colacompany.com) and Procter & Gamble (www.us.pg.com).

PRE is currently conducting a study on end markets for recyclates, which will be published in September this year. Earlier this month, the European Plastics Converters (EuPC, Brussels; www.eupc.org) association held its annual meeting in Madrid / Spain, where delegates discussed how to set ambitious goals to embrace a circular economy and remain competitive. Here, Emans stressed this requirement and noted that it was time for concrete action, with recyclate accounting for just 4% of plastics raw material – see Plasteurope.com of 09.06.2017.

The next PRE annual meeting will take place on 11 - 12 October 2018 in Cascais / Portugal.