Plastic Pipes Conference Association # 2023 Lake Buena Vista
Ludo Debever, Peter Sejersen
The Circular Economy Action Plan is a major building block of Europe’s Green Deal, the European Climate Change strategy. It has far-reaching consequences for the entire EU industrial fabric and its business models. The EU’s transition from a linear to a circular economy aims to reduce on natural resources and pave the way to climate neutrality in 2050. The focus at the beginning was on single use products, such as packaging and textiles, but is now gradually shifting towards long live products such as building and construction and automotive. The industry is preparing for mandatory recycled content specifications and decarbonisation requirements imposed by authorities both at European and EU Member State level.
This transition towards a circular economy in the plastics industry was already initiated before the Green Deal and Europe’s Plastic Pipe manufacturers have already been working on circularity aspects of their products since the beginning of the 21st century.
The paper below describes the latest European Regulatory Environment developments to support the EU strategy towards a carbon neutral Europe by 2050.
It further explains the TEPFPA strategy and activities to prepare its members and their stakeholders to meet the requirements imposed by the European and Member State Regulators. It includes the TEPPFA pledge towards the European Commission, the outcome of the recycling survey on the volumes of recycled plastics used today; aligning and better understanding recycling definitions:
Activities within CEN/TC 155 have been initiated to open up EN product standards and allow for an increased uptake of recycled content as well as the development of design for recycling guidelines. To cope with increased demand potential voluntary industry collection schemes for end-of-life pipes are being investigated. The paper also looks into potential solutions for difficult to recycle plastic pipes and it deals with new barriers identified such as legacy additives.
Finally, the paper provides latest test results on the impact of recycled content on the longevity of plastic pipes and fittings.
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