PLASTICS PACKAGING EUROPE
Approximately 9m t waste per year / Chemical and mechanical recycling at a low level / New APME study with detailed market data
Almost half the packaging employed in Western Europe is made of plastics, yet, at the same time, plastics packaging accounts for only one sixth of the weight of packaging as a whole and is up to a fifth lighter than twenty years ago, thereby requiring a correspondingly smaller amount of material. These and the following figures have been taken from the study, "Plastics – A material of choice in packaging", that has just been published by the European association of plastics producers, APME (Avenue E. Nieuwenhuyse 4, B-1160 Brussels), on the basis of data for 1995 from the Sofras Conseil market research institute.
According to APME, plastics score their ecological bonus not only on account of the increasingly small amount of raw material required per packaging unit but also through recycling, which is "on the advance" in Europe. If the individual recycling rates are carefully scrutinised, however, then the results appear less favourable – at least as far as the mechanical and chemical recycling of post-consumer packaging from private households is concerned.
Hence, according to figures in the study, mechanical recycling processes in Europe account for only 5%, or 355,000 t, of the overall quantity of some 6.7m t used packaging from private households. The chemical recycling rate is only 1.5% or 99,000 t in this field, although these figures ought to have risen considerably since 1995 on account of the massive rise in chemical recycling by the DKR in Germany alone. The dominant position occupied by incineration with energy recovery for plastics packaging in Europe will not have changed much in the meantime. According to APME figures, a total of 1.6m t post-consumer packaging (from households and industry) was incinerated with energy recovery in 1995. Together with the two other recycling methods and the tonnage recycled outside Europe, this gives an "overall recycling rate" of 32% – expressed in terms of a total of 9.1m t used plastics packaging in 1995.
Apart from European waste management, the APME study also contains detailed market data on the production and consumption of plastics packaging in Western Europe, broken down according to the different countries, end uses (film, bottles, sacks and bags) and type of raw material employed.
READER SERVICE: APME Study "Plastics – A material of choice for packaging; Plastics consumption and recovery in Western Europe 1995", 1997, 11 pages, numerous illustrations and tables: PIE-No. 42092.
According to APME, plastics score their ecological bonus not only on account of the increasingly small amount of raw material required per packaging unit but also through recycling, which is "on the advance" in Europe. If the individual recycling rates are carefully scrutinised, however, then the results appear less favourable – at least as far as the mechanical and chemical recycling of post-consumer packaging from private households is concerned.
Hence, according to figures in the study, mechanical recycling processes in Europe account for only 5%, or 355,000 t, of the overall quantity of some 6.7m t used packaging from private households. The chemical recycling rate is only 1.5% or 99,000 t in this field, although these figures ought to have risen considerably since 1995 on account of the massive rise in chemical recycling by the DKR in Germany alone. The dominant position occupied by incineration with energy recovery for plastics packaging in Europe will not have changed much in the meantime. According to APME figures, a total of 1.6m t post-consumer packaging (from households and industry) was incinerated with energy recovery in 1995. Together with the two other recycling methods and the tonnage recycled outside Europe, this gives an "overall recycling rate" of 32% – expressed in terms of a total of 9.1m t used plastics packaging in 1995.
Apart from European waste management, the APME study also contains detailed market data on the production and consumption of plastics packaging in Western Europe, broken down according to the different countries, end uses (film, bottles, sacks and bags) and type of raw material employed.
READER SERVICE: APME Study "Plastics – A material of choice for packaging; Plastics consumption and recovery in Western Europe 1995", 1997, 11 pages, numerous illustrations and tables: PIE-No. 42092.
31.03.1998 Plasteurope.com [18775]
Published on 31.03.1998