More than half of EU recycling capacity – covering both pre- and post-consumer streams – was certified by accreditation scheme EuCertPlast (www.eucertplast.eu) in 2020, accounting for 4.6m t. The scheme added 45 recycling facilities last year, expanding by 27% compared to 2019, and taking the total to 214 companies.

EuCertPlast certification verifies the traceability of the plastic waste, provides a conformity assessment, and calculates the recycled content. The leading country, with 30% of certified capacity, was Germany, followed by Italy with 12%, then the Netherlands and France with shares of 11% and 10%, respectively. The most widely certified polymers, representing almost half of the total capacity, were LDPE and PET.

EuCertPlast said the steady increase in certifications highlighted the increasing demand for third-party verification of the waste’s origin and calculated recycled content, as well as the growth and maturing of the European plastic recycling market.

It added that by promoting transparency and high standards, it also contributes to the goal of the Circular Plastics Alliance, an EU initiative that aims to increase the uptake of recycled materials to 10m t by 2025.

The accreditation scheme is a joint initiative between Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE, Brussels, Belgium; www.plasticsrecyclers.eu), the European Association of Plastics Recycling and Recovery Organisations (EPRO, Brussels / Belgium; www.epro-plasticsrecycling.org), the European Plastics Converters Association (EuPC, Brussels / Belgium; www.plasticsconverters.eu) and Recovinyl (Brussels / Belgium; www.recovinyl.com). The scheme launched a food-contact module for plastics recycling processes last September (see Plasteurope.com of 23.09.2020).

Last month, PRE published an overview of the European plastics recycling industry for EU 28+2 in 2019 (see Plasteurope.com of 21.01.2021).