Plastics, sustainability and society – these were the key topics at the latest “IdentiPlast” conference (www.identiplast.eu), which took place in London in March 2019. The event, organised by PlasticsEurope (Brussels / Belgium; www.plasticseurope.org) and the British Plastics Federation (BPF, London; www.bpf.co.uk), featured talks from more than 50 speakers in plastics recycling and waste management, from across Europe as well as Colombia, Ghana, Japan and North America. Over 340 people attended the 14th edition of IdentiPlast.

Bruce Margetts, president of the BPF, and Javier Constante, president of PlasticsEurope, opened this year’s edition, outlining the current state of the plastics industry in the EU and UK. Constante stressed that the EU single-use plastics directive, an example of one recent legislative measure, represented a wake-up call for the industry.

In a video message, UK minister of environment Thérèse Coffey welcomed the industry-led initiatives to reduce plastics waste. The European Commission’s director-general of DG Environment, Daniel Calleja Crespo, said every regulatory initiative aimed at supporting a more sustainable consumption of plastics must be crafted to always protect the interest of the EU single market. He commended PlasticsEurope on its voluntary commitment (for example, see Plasteurope.com of 01.04.2019) and collaboration with the EU institutions.

PlasticsEurope recorded almost 100 live Twitter posts at IdentiPlast 2019 from 7-8 March, and its top follower during the event was the Italian environmental protection institute Ispra (Rome; www.isprambiente.gov.it). The Brussels-based association also conducted short interviews with the American Chemistry Council's (ACC, Washington, D.C.; www.americanchemistry.com) VP of plastics, Steve Russell, Daniel Yaw Mensah Tornyigah, director at Ghana's plastic manufacturers association, Daniel Mitchell, president of Colombia's Acoplásticos (Bogotá; www.acoplasticos.org) and researcher Markus Gall from the Institute of Polymeric Materials and Testing at the Johannes Kepler University Linz (Linz / Austria; www.jku.at/en/institute-of-polymeric-materials-and-testing).