Having achieved our initial recycled polyolefin voluntary pledge ahead of schedule, we have now upgraded our level of ambition with new, even bolder, voluntary targets.
This is an exciting milestone for PCEP, demonstrating the polyolefin industry’s deep commitment to delivering circularity. Read more about our updated targets below.
Progress towards our voluntary pledge to increase the volume of recycled post-consumer polyolefin content used in European products to 3 million tonnes a year by 2025 is measured using PCEP’s study of collected polyolefin (PO) waste in Europe, undertaken by Conversio.
The original pledge was based on PCEP 2016 market data and the 2019 market study demonstrated steady progress with clear increase in the volume of recyclates from collected post-consumer waste. Two years later, the 2021 repetition of the survey showed we have already reached our pledge to increase the amount of recycled post-consumer polyolefin (PO) used in European products to 3M tonnes. As a result, we upgraded our level of ambition, increasing the target to 4M tonnes a year by 2025 – double the amount used in 2016 (2M tonnes a year).
In addition to monitoring progress, the data generated through this survey helps us determine where we need to focus our efforts to move faster. And while polyolefins are still more recycled than the plastics industry average, the 2021 results show there is plenty of room for improvement.
The data demonstrates the scale of the opportunity to drive more waste away from landfill or energy recovery and towards recyclers instead. There’s an evident need for significant investment in collection, sorting and recycling infrastructure and PCEP has been calling on all the appropriate organisations and authorities to make this a reality.
Polyolefins are vital materials if we want to decarbonise our society and have high quality, safe, eco-friendly lives. They are a leading material across a wide variety of industries and applications, ranging from everyday household use to specialised industrial applications.
ON AVERAGE 34.4KG OF POST-CONSUMER POLYOLEFIN WASTE IS COLLECTED PER CAPITA
GERMANY, UK, FRANCE, ITALY, SPAIN AND POLAND REPRESENT 70% OF THE TOTAL COLLECTED POLYOLEFIN WASTE
71% OF POST-CONSUMER COLLECTED POLYOLEFIN WASTE IS PACKAGING, CONTRIBUTING 84.7% OF RECYCLED POLYOLEFIN ON THE MARKET
POLYOLEFINS REPRESENT 50% OF EUROPE'S PLASTIC DEMAND
POLYOLEFINS REPRESENT 71% OF PLASTIC PACKAGING DEMAND
POLYOLEFINS REPRESENT 61% OF TOTAL COLLECTED POST-CONSUMER PLASTICS WASTE
Polyolefin Circular Economy Platform (PCEP) Aisbl
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