Brussels - The recent discussions on the sustainability of oxo degradables are showing the important impact that new technologies have on the market. All new technologies are welcomed by the plastics recyclers as long as they are in line with the existing European legislations and state of the art in recycling activities, say European Plastics Recyclers (EuPR).

As far as the legislation is concerned the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) does not mention OXO degradables. The philosophy of the WFD wants to minimise landfill and to maximise the waste reduction, reuse and recovery (mechanical recycling and energy recovery). Moreover, according to the landfill Directive all waste must be treated before going to landfill. This means that the plastics containing OXO degradables will end in the streams arriving to the recyclers. Which impact this waste will have on the plastics recyclates is not clear today. Furthermore, in the past years plastics recyclers have already experienced that new materials and technologies placed on the market have caused problems to the recycling activities.

In Europe approximately half of the plastics waste is recovered and the other half is landfilled. In order to move towards a recycling society the plastics recycling rate has to rise. This will be possible by increasing the recyclability of the products put on the market (design for recycling), increase the efficiency of the collection systems (increase the quality of the sorted waste, ban waste export, etc) and increase the use of recycled materials. Putting on the market technologies that are allowing plastics to be landfilled is questionable from a sustainable point of view. All plastics waste have to be collected and consequently must be compatible with recycling in order to be treated.

Therefore, EuPR calls the oxo degradable additives producers to test and prove the recyclability of their products with specialised structures such as petbottleplatform.eu (EPBP). These producers first need to convince the plastics industry like recyclers, converters or fillers and the environmental organisation that their products are effectively sustainable as they claim to be before putting them on the market.

Quelle: European Plastics Recyclers (EuPR)

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