Three key global plastics recycling organizations, The Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR), Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE), and the European PET Bottle Platform (EPBP), have created a coalition aimed at coordinating efforts on testing protocols.
Their partnership dubbed as the Global Plastics Outreach Alliance to bring together relative Design Guides and Testing Protocols, and act as a coordinated industry voice to form a Global Plastics Protocol.
APR president Steve Alexander says that all the organizations have created testing protocols to ascertain the recyclability of a package or innovation.
Alexander added: “As consumer brand companies expand their focus on sustainability, we identified differences between our protocols, which may require a company to conduct 3 separate tests to achieve the same recyclability designation.
“We hope to clarify those differences and align all segments of our testing protocols. This exercise will also allow us to provide information to the New Plastics Economy (NPE) program of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.”
ARP represents firms which acquire, reprocess and buy the output of over 90% of the post-consumer plastic processing capacity in North America.
PRE president Ton Emans says that it is vital for the plastics recycling industry to have a coordinated voice.
Emans added: “There has been a tremendous amount of work done to date that greatly improved the ability of a package or material to be recycled from a design and collection standpoint.”
PRE, which was established in 1996, brings together recyclers from all around Europe. It represents plastics recyclers like National Associations and individual member firms.
EPBP representative Andreas Christel says that PET recyclability tests are an example of the importance of the effort put in by the group.
Christel added: “In an ever-changing global economy, the last thing we need in the plastics recycling world is to make it more difficult for packaging engineers and designers to understand what protocol the innovation should address in order to assure recyclability.
“This effort will go a long way toward creating a truly global plastics recycling industry standard for certain resins.”
EPBP is a voluntary industry initiative aimed at providing PET bottle design guidelines for recycling among others.
