State of play for collected and sorted plastic waste in Europe

The European Commission’s Circular Plastics Alliance has released its new state of play on collecting and sorting. The report looks at the agricultural, automotive, construction, electronic & electric and packaging sectors – bringing together data from more detailed reports already being undertaken in each sector.

The summary serves to identify common challenges across the sectors: the issues of data availability, achieving high collection levels and the sorting of plastic waste are especially prevalent.

The report points to inconsistencies in reporting between member states due to the variation in the methods applied, which leads to not only difficulties in enforcing regulations, but also in carrying out quantitative assessments.

Another highlight of the report is the need to focus on research and development to improve collecting and sorting. This is true across all industries, each of which has its own unique set of challenges that will need to be addressed.

The Circular Plastics Alliance is an initiative launched by the European Commission in 2018 to streamline the voluntary pledges made by the industry in response to the European Plastics Strategy. Its goal is to boost the EU market for recycled plastics to 10 million tonnes by 2025.

The full report can be downloaded here.