Europe produces nearly 30 mn t of plastics waste annually, and the amount is increasing. Food packaging accounts for almost 60% of such waste, and to deal with the refuse, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (Espoo; www.vttresearch.com), in collaboration with compatriot packaging group Huhtamaki (Espoo; www.huhtamaki.com) is calling for the development of recycling solutions through alliances between brand owners, recycling and sorting technology developers, and waste management companies.

Its discussion paper, Recycling Food Waste, focusses on packaging recycling in the US and Europe and says the recycling rates remain relatively low, especially for plastic and polymer-coated packaging. In the US, the recovery rate for packaging and foodservice plastics is about 14%. In Europe, it’s somewhat higher at approximately 40%, according to 2019 data, compared to approximately 80% for paperboard on both continents.

The EU statistics office Eurostat estimates that each person in the EU generated an average of 35 kg/y of plastic packaging waste in 2021. And the US tops the global list at around 130 kg/y. “Major factors affecting this are linked to the lack of infrastructure for the advanced sorting of recovered used material and the deployment of chemical plastic recycling as a complement to mechanical plastic recycling,” states the paper. As a result, VTT said it expects a significant increase in industrial chemical recycling capacity in the US, Europe, and East Asia in the next three to four years.

Related: Report highlights difficulties facing recycling with European reclaim rate only 23%

One of the major barriers to the expansion of recycling is not only the recycling capacity, but also the collection and sorting infrastructure, which is still inadequate in many countries, the paper noted. Even with suitable infrastructure, collection covers 80% of packaging waste, with the rest ending up in mixed waste fractions and then in landfills.

Making a case for chemical recycling, the paper talks about development within the field, particularly in Europe, where some plants are already producing REACH-registered material. Chemical recycling for plastics mixed waste is intensive, and significant progress will be achieved over the next five years, the report says, adding that a major part of this is based on pyrolysis, the degradation of material, under thermal conditions in the absence of oxygen, into vapours.

VTT uses the example of the UK firm Plastic Energy (London; www.plasticenergy.com), which operates two demonstration plants in Spain, each with capacity of 5000 t/y. Its pyrolysis process yields 80-85% REACH-certified Tacoil, 15% syngas, and minor shares of char. In collaboration with Sabic, Exxon, and Total, Plastic Energy has at least six plants under construction or in the planning phase, with capacities of 15,000-33,000 t/y for plastics waste in France, Spain, the Netherlands, and the US.

Related: Plastic Energy’s first Tacoil plant in the US

Another befitting example is of Brightmark (San Francisco, California, USA; www.brightmark.com), which is finalising a 100 000 t/y pyrolysis plant in Indiana and developing another in South Korea (see Plasteurope.com of 14.06.2021).