The German plastic packaging industry association Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen (IK, Bad Homburg; www.kunststoffverpackungen.de) has set recycling targets for 2025. By that time, the aim is to increase the use of recycled materials in plastic packaging to 1m t. The industry currently uses around 400,000 t of recycled material, which corresponds to 9.1% of the total volume used by packaging manufacturers – see Plasteurope.com of 26.10.2018.

Based on the current consumption of around 4.4m t/y of plastic packaging, the proportion of recycled plastics would rise to just under 23%. However, this share decreases with increasing total consumption. For example, in 2018, the IK forecast an increase of 3.9% (as of October 2018) – a hefty increase compared to the last two years (2.1% in 2017 and 1.1% in 2016). In addition, the German plastic packaging manufacturers want to work towards increasing the proportion of recyclable packaging from 75% to 90% in the same period. This fits in well with Germany's new packaging law coming into effect on 1 January 2019 – see Plasteurope.com of 03.12.2018.

However, the IK points out that processors need "reliable quantities of recycled material of sufficient quality" to meet their voluntary goals, and the association calls for "cooperation with the bottling or packaging industry." IK general manager Jürgen Bruder says, "The important thing here is to resolve conflict of aims between ecological design and marketing."