Since the UN Climate Change Conference, COP26 in Glasgow at the end of October, the topics of sustainability and resource conservation through a circular economy have once again been high on the agenda of the plastics industry. There is political pressure: the EU single-use plastics (SUP) regulation came into force on 3 July 2021 (see PIEWeb of 08.07.2021), and the bureaucrats in Brussels are currently tinkering with a new waste and disposal law that will impose ambitiously high recyclate-use quotas on the industry. In addition, the European Commission proposes tighter rules for plastics waste shipments in an effort to reduce illegal trade and improve the recyclate market within the European Union (see PIEWeb of 13.12.2021).

How is the industry responding to this trend, which also has broad support from the society? What can and should companies do to adapt their business model towards a circular economy in good time? By focusing on recyclates, is the plastics industry also creating a shift in reputation and public acceptance?

PIE, together with its sister publications, Kunststoff Information (KI, Bad Homburg / Germany; www.kiweb.de) and K-PROFI, discussed this and other pertinent questions with four distinguished experts, as part of the online discussion series, Future Atelier – 50 Years of KI.

“In some cases, policymakers are not providing much that leads to the desired goal.”
Gunda Rachut, chair of Germany’s central packaging register office Stiftung Zentrale Stelle Verpackungsregister (ZSVR, Osnabrück; www.verpackungsregister.org)

In order to close the loop on material cycles in the plastics industry, efforts are needed along the entire value chain. This starts with recycling, where there is still a lot of room for improvement. And it doesn’t stop with packaging design – here we have the fatal trend of so-called composite solutions. Anything that contains brown paper is unfortunately wrongly regarded by consumers as particularly eco-friendly.

Additionally, far too much packaging is still being lost because consumers do not classify it correctly and, in some cases, do not yet see the point of sorting. And on top of this, every little waste scandal is currently hyped so much in the media that many end-users are demotivated and no longer participate at all, because they believe that everything will be incinerated or transported to Asia anyway.

But that is not the case at all: we have a material quota of 60% from the dual system, which is really good – a lot has happened in the past few years. This message that they are doing something useful must finally be brought home to consumers.

At the same time, depending on the market situation, many plastics – especially from industrial and commercial waste – are still being incinerated. In this area, more or less is sorted out depending on the market situation. We do have a commercial waste ordinance, but it is not properly implemented and is also not monitored. In other words: overall, a lot is still being lost.

As long as the recyclate is significantly more expensive than the primary material, the question of economic steering instruments also arises. If you want a circular economy, politics must also make adjustments. The environmental cost of packaging must be internalised. This levels out the price difference between first-use material and recycled goods. The current economic situation in recycling is not a driver for the development towards circulation, but rather an impediment. If we want a circular economy, we have to structure things differently financially.

Related: A Plastics Retrospective: The plastics industry still faces challenges

By the way, a circular economy does not mean that packaging must necessarily be turned into packaging again. From an ecological point of view, this often makes no difference. The result can also be a pipe – what is important is the high-quality utilisation in a product. You always have to look from product to product to see whether recyclate can be used. The discussion about availabilities will become more heated as the big players discover circular economy as a market.

In some cases, policymakers are not providing much that leads to the desired goal. The EU SUP directive was made in a hurry. This also becomes apparent in how regulations are implemented completely differently in many countries. This inconsistency undermines the idea of Europe. The Commission has been presented with an immense work programme in the form of the Green Deal. This cannot do justice to the complexity of the issues, and certainly not at this pace.

“The use of recycled materials often fails because of the price”
Wolfgang Bechtold, managing director at plastics processor Ernst Bechtold & Sohn (Oberzent / Germany; www.bechtold-sohn.com)

We are a plastics processing company that supplies both the automotive industry and medical technology companies. We have been dealing with the topic of circular economy for about 15 years now. Back then, we made the first experiments with renewable raw materials. Now, we are working closely with Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences.

We are not doing this on a whim, but because we assume that in the foreseeable future we will be forced to comply with certain limits or meet recyclate quotas. I am certain that the road we take as an industry will be paved with regulations going forward. For us, this means that we have to move – and as a company we are prepared to do so.

At the same time, there are limits that are set by our product. An example from automotive engineering: we manufacture bottles for tyre-repair kits. These bottles are filled with a latex emulsion that reseals the holes in the event of a puncture. In the event of a breakdown, these cylinders are pressurised to a maximum of 15 bars by a compressor; 15 bars is quite a lot for a plastic bottle. If there are specks, which cannot always be avoided when using recycled materials, we have to expect that the entire batch will be thrown out and our customer will claim recourse – consider all the financial consequences that involves for us. We obviously don’t want that. The situation in our medical technology area is similar. We produce wound drainage bottles – roughly 15m PVC bottles per year. PET would be too expensive for this, and hospitals would not buy them. How should germ-contaminated bottles like this be reused? It isn’t possible. When these products are thermally utilised – I deliberately avoid the word “burned” – they at least bring energy back into the power grid.

If there were suitable recycled materials on the market, I would use them immediately. In our production itself, we recycle all the time. Our slug waste, for example, goes straight back into our production – this has been done for ages. We are currently also processing a material that is half sourced from plastics waste in the German recycling system. The downside is that we have a fairly high proportion of specks. But our customer accepts it in this case because the product does not have to meet any special hygiene requirements. Other material, which supposedly consists of 100% recycled post-consumer waste, stinks so badly that the manufacturer has to cover it up with a lemon fragrance. In a nutshell: many things are still far from being as fully developed and ready for practical use as some people would like.

Of course, there should be more material that comes from renewable sources. Delivery times are currently dramatic. For example, when we used to order material for our wound drainage bottles earlier, the delivery time used to be two weeks. But now, we order in October and hear from the supplier that we might be able to get the granules in January. That is completely insane.

In my opinion, the use of recyclates also very often fails because of the price, because the initial sorting is very time-consuming, and makes the material expensive. Especially in the post-consumer sector, the cleaning of recycled plastics waste is a major cost factor. Then the customer says: my love for recycling doesn’t go that far after all. If my products get this expensive, I won’t be able to sell them to my customers.

“You can only achieve acceptance for recyclates through quality”
Markus Lutz, sales manager at recycling specialist MKV Kunststoff (Beselich-Obertiefenbach / Germany; www.mkv-kunststoff.de)

What does not help us at all in this matter is the negative communication on plastics. Plastics bashing seems to be in fashion. There is always an attempt to communicate a lot of negativity, such as: what are all the things plastics can’t do? How do plastics cause harm? I think we should instead ask ourselves: what do plastics accomplish? The pandemic in particular has shown how many lives plastics can save!

Our materials are pure post-industrial waste, i.e. flawed parts or sprues from injection moulding. These materials form the basis for our products, mainly engineering plastics like polyamide, POM, PBT, and so on. When we talk about the use of recyclates, it always depends on where you want to use them. In some areas, such as medical applications, I would also have qualms. We have many enquiries from customers regarding whether they can use recyclates for their products. It always depends on the component and the purpose for which it is intended. I would certainly not manufacture high-security parts from a recyclate, because certain properties have to be guaranteed. This has to be communicated quite honestly, even if it is ultimately up to the customer to decide.

But there are other components for which this is certainly possible – some of which are also predestined for the use of recycled material. Overall, we observe that the requests from our customers are increasing, also because their customers are demanding it.

A big issue that has always concerned us is the acceptance of recycled materials. It can only be achieved in the long term through their quality. Recyclates have always had a negative connotation – wrongly, in my opinion. Because we have to meet exactly the same standards as first-use material. It is also demanded and expected of us that the material is clean and unmixed, that we have a data sheet for each product on which the specifics are precisely documented.

Therefore, we already make sure that the material is clean and unmixed during our incoming goods inspection. That is our task. We make precise analyses of every single bundle we process. After all, we also have to give a product guarantee. We test between 10 t and 20 t of material a day.

Acceptance for recyclates only comes through quality and through consistency in this quality. The quality of the recyclate already starts where the flawed parts are produced by the injection moulder, and are then sorted into the correct container. As a recycler, we depend on good raw material. The better the material is sorted at the beginning, the better we can use it. Rules and procedures must also be followed during production and the process must be controlled so that I can then sell the material with a clear conscience later.

Price also plays a role. In the case of engineering thermoplastics, recyclates are generally cheaper than virgin material. As far as availability is concerned: no customer has ever had to shut down their machines because of us. We always buy a little more to have a reserve. Currently, the situation has become more difficult. We used to buy 20 t once, now we have to buy 1 t 20 times. The market has become more fragmented, which makes the whole thing more time-consuming. There is a lot more work and more documentation. But we are able to deliver.

“We need to put a value on plastics waste”
Gerd Liebig, chairman of the management board of Sumitomo SHI Demag Plastics Machinery (Schwaig / Germany; www.sumitomo-shi-demag.eu/de)

The topics of ‘recycling’ and ‘use of recycled materials’ are being hyped quite a bit right now. Unfortunately, this hype is often based on uninformed and unrealistic statements about a world without plastics. Politicians try to take up the underlying sentiment and often exaggerate in the process. People talk about “single-use plastics” and focus on bans. However, people do not consider that carbon footprint is very often worse if plastics are avoided. Take highly coated paper, for example: as a composite material, it is not separable and would therefore not be a sensible alternative. The same applies to glass, which consumes a lot of energy both in production and in transport over long distances.

In principle, I think the specification of quotas for recyclate use is not that bad. Because we need put a value on plastics waste. Only valuable things are collected and returned to the cycle. If you want to bring new products into the cycle, there has to be a monetary value.

In the industry, the discussion on recycling and the use of recycled materials is currently very intense. Most companies see this as an opportunity rather than a risk. The development is driven by politics and the media. But awareness in society is also changing: more and more consumers are demanding sustainable products – and are also prepared to spend more money on them. It is now the task of politicians to promote the right thing. On the part of the companies, I observe a high willingness to participate if there are advantages. By this, I mean not only economic benefits, but also image benefits. Many companies in the plastics industry know that their positioning – and also their social acceptance – will depend heavily on sustainable products and their carbon footprint in the future.

As a machine manufacturer, we deal with the topic of circular economy and the use of recycled materials every day – even if it’s because our customers are increasingly asking us about it. The processing of regranulates is not an insurmountable technological challenge. Ultimately, we process many different materials with our machines. Recyclates are just an extension of the material spectrum. We adjust the machine, as we do with other materials in plasticisation. There are no particular issues or pitfalls. Normal adjustments are necessary that do not result in any special investment cost.

The main challenge is to control non-uniform material properties through intelligent process monitoring. We have high hopes that raw material producers will succeed in stabilising and improving the material properties. From a technical point of view, it is above all the purity of the material that sets limits for the use of recyclates. In the case of regranulate, the original properties can change or, in extreme cases, even be lost, such as stability and surface properties. The all-important question will therefore be how to achieve a quality of recycled parts that is comparable to that of new material. The focus is on chemical purity and the avoidance of toxins.