Welcome to the Plastics Weekly, NEO’s regular news monitoring of the plastics industry.
This week’s highlights:
- A number of single-use plastic products have been banned from being sold across Wales as new legislation comes into force, following similar bans on single-use plastics in England and Scotland. The Welsh government said the ban would reduce the flow of plastic pollution into the environment by prohibiting the supply of certain products, including single-use plastic plates, cutlery, stirrers and drinking straws. The country’s climate change minister said that the governmnet further plans to ban plastic single-use carrier bags, polystyrene lids for cups and food containers, and products made of oxo-degradable plastic. (The Guardian)
- European plastics manufacturers have unveiled a roadmap towards circularity for plastics. Plastics Europe and its members have agreed on a ‘Plastics Transition’ roadmap with their sights set on circularity, net zero emissions, and more sustainable material consumption in the European plastics industry. It envisions that fossil-based plastics will gradually be phased out, with circular plastics expected to meet 25% of European demand by 2030 and 65% by 2050. (Packaging Europe)
- The petrochemicals arm of Malaysian oil and gas company Petronas said it plans to build a 33,000 tonne/year domestic chemical recycling facility in Pengerang, Malaysia with start-up scheduled for 2026. According to Petronas Chemicals Group, the plan is to convert end-of-life plastics into pyrolysis oil that can be used as a feedstock for polymer production. The Petronas subsidiary has been collaborating with UK recycling technology supplier Plastic Energy since 2019. The company also said last year that it had signed an agreement with US oil giant ExxonMobil to assess the large-scale implementation of recycling. (PlastEurope)