PolyREC Created to Report on Europe’s Plastics Circularity

Petcore Europe®, PlasticsEurope®, Plastics Recyclers Europe®, and VinylPlus® have mutually agreed to join forces to form the organisation PolyREC. PolyREC will monitor, verify, and report their plastics recycling and uptake data in Europe. This will be achieved by using a common data collection system – RecoTrace. PolyREC will ensure traceability, transparency, and trust in recycled materials along the entire plastics value chain.

PolyREC will use VinylPlus’ 20 years’ experience and expertise that it has in becoming the industry standard for collecting credible and reliable recycling data via its data collection vehicle Recovinyl®. VinylPlus’ Managing Director Brigitte Dero says “circularity of plastics is a key opportunity to enhance plastics products sustainability. The European PVC industry, through VinylPlus, has learnt the importance of monitoring and progress reporting. We are therefore pleased to share this long-time experience and work collaboratively with all plastic industry sectors to raise traceability and transparency in recycled plastics along the entire plastics value chain.”

PolyREC comes at a time where monitoring polymers circularity is paramount, especially in the context of the Circular Plastics Alliance (CPA). This system will be able to fulfil the CPA objectives, legislative traceability demands, and industry wide plastic recycling pledges. PRE’s President, Ton Emans, elaborated by saying that “setting up mechanisms that evidence progress in driving plastic circularity in a transparent manner is a must if we are to meet the EU targets”.

Emans continued that “today’s announcement by the plastics value chain covering recyclers, raw material producers, and converters is a significant step towards a credible and systemic approach to genuinely improve plastic production, collection, and recycling. This mutual approach to data collection is indispensable to measure the industry’s advancement while using the same yardstick”.

Petcore Europe’s Managing Director Christian Crépet announced that as “Petcore Europe has been pioneering the monitoring of PET recycling in Europe since the 1990’s, its participation into a joint monitoring recycled plastics scheme for the EU is both timely and logical”.

“We are very pleased to join forces with key plastic value chain partners in setting up this unique cross-polymer monitoring system while benefiting from the longstanding and proven Recovinyl system. Capitalizing on our solid experience in providing key figures of the European plastic industry, we see this as a key milestone in our journey towards circular plastics.”, added Virginia Janssens, PlasticsEurope Managing Director.

Interested organizations are welcome to join this initiative.

For additional information, contact: brigitte.dero@vinylplus.eu

PlasticsEurope is the pan-European association of plastics manufacturers with offices across Europe. For over 100 years, science and innovation has been the DNA that cuts across our industry. With close to 100 members producing over 90% of all polymers across Europe, we are the catalyst for the industry with a responsibility to openly engage with stakeholders and deliver solutions which are safe, circular and sustainable. We are committed to implementing long-lasting positive change. www.plasticseurope.org

Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE) is an organization representing the voice of the European plastics recyclers who reprocess plastic waste into high-quality material destined for the production of new articles. Recyclers are important facilitators of the circularity of plastics and the transition towards the circular economy. Plastics recycling in Europe is a rapidly growing sector representing over €3 billion in turnover, 8.5 million tonnes of installed recycling capacity, 600 companies and over 20.000 employees. www.plasticsrecyclers.eu

VinylPlus is the Voluntary Commitment to sustainable development of the European PVC industry. The VinylPlus programme was developed through open dialogue with stakeholders, including industry, NGOs, regulators, civil society representatives and PVC users. Its regional scope is the EU-27 plus Norway, Switzerland and the UK. VinylPlus is registered as a SMART partnership on the United Nations Partnerships for Sustainable Development Goals Platform. www.vinylplus.eu