1. The recycling of plastic materials in
community waste in Europe
- The best practices
Silvia Buchmann
05.11.2013

2. World plastics production 1950-2012

3. Life Cycle of Plastics in 2012

4. The European Union's approach to
waste management

5. Plastic packaging has the highest
recycling and energy recovery rate

6. Netherlands – 2012 over 50% recycled
• Plastic packaging collection only started in 2009
• ¾ of the collected material got recycled in 2012
• Companies (producers and importers) are legally
obliged to separately collect all the plastic waste and
offer for recycling.
• They pay a waste management fee for financing the
system of collection and recycling
• Collections:
– Underground containers that condense the plastic
– In containers at street level
– house-to-house with transparent bags

7. Germany – 2012 over 40% recycled
•
•
•
•
collected in transparent yellow bags or bins
Recycled plastic can keep up with virgin plastic
economically reasonable, much cheaper
goal for 2015: more than 60%

8. European Plastics Demand by Resin
Type 2012

9. The Technique (Germany - PP)

10. Products out of recycled PP Plastics

11. PE is very sought

12. PVC recycling in the UK
• by selective dissolution and filtration
• a virgin-like recycled PVC compound
• Plastic recycling target by 2017 is 57%
(28% in 2012)

13. Utilization e.g. Germany
• more than 90% in Germany
• the rest mainly in Europe
• Otherwise only certified customers
• "Green Fence" policy by Chinese government:
dam the import of unsorted, inferior plastic waste
to China
• The Green Dot doesn’t export unsorted plastic
waste.

15. Thank you for your
attention!