Welcome to the Plastics Weekly, NEO’s regular news monitoring of the plastics industry.
This week’s highlights:
- PET plastic bottles have been deemed more sustainable than aluminum or glass, according to a new study. A recent life cycle assessment (LCA) report by the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR) suggests PET plastic bottles deliver “significant environmental savings” across several key environmental categories. Among the key findings: PET plastic bottles produce significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and PET requires less energy to produce than glass and aluminium counterparts. (Packaging Gateway)
- The European Commission has rejected calls from the bottled water industry to reserve recovered PET bottles in priority for recycling into new food-grade plastics, saying this risked causing distortions on the secondary materials market. According to the bottled water industry, this hinders the potential to recover PET plastics for recycling into new plastic bottles, which require high-quality plastic suitable for packaging that comes into contact with food. The Commission’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), tabled in November, sets new targets for recycling and reuse in order to reduce waste. But many countries do not yet have the infrastructure for increased recycling. (Euractiv)
- Around 85% of plastic packaging worldwide ends up in landfills. With plastic production set to triple globally by 2060, plastics made primarily from oil or gas are a growing source of the carbon pollution fuelling climate change. While new universal plastic regulations are currently underway, circular product design still relies on the myth of recycling, which in its current guise is doing little to ease a mounting plastics crisis. Here’s a look at why most plastic can’t be recycled. (Deutsche Welle)