Europe-wide plastic packaging waste composition analysis for CEFLEX
Over the past four years Resource Futures has worked with the Circular Economy for Flexible Packaging (CEFLEX) consortium to deliver a multi-country European composition analysis study.
This work – believed to be the first study to apply a uniform method approach and categorisation across countries – has looked at flexible and rigid plastic packaging within the post-consumer recycling and residual waste streams.
The work was carried out in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Poland, allowing direct comparisons to be drawn. Resource Futures led on the delivery of this study, working with CEFLEX, its group of partners, stakeholders and a range of waste management companies and facilities to successfully gather the new data.
A primary aim of the project was to gather granular insights into the proportion of ‘mono polymer’ plastic films (made from a single type or family of plastic) compared to ‘multilayer films’ of two or more types of plastic polymers. This data will help in supporting separation, treatment and processing capacity needs at regional, country and European levels.
Resource Futures developed a sampling programme and fieldwork sorting methodology that could provide highly detailed insights into the makeup of different types of plastic packaging. Samples were sorted on-site and by hand in each country, separating packaging into detailed categories for analysis.
In a first for this type of waste composition analysis study, Resource Futures also developed a pioneering approach to identify plastic films in the field using a handheld near infrared (NIR) analyser. This allowed the rapid differentiation between mono and twin multilayer plastic films in the field. The work was supported by an expert packaging technologist and involved extensive testing of product packaging films from brands and manufacturers.
During the fieldwork, waste and recycling samples were separated into over 200 categories, including: packaging format, plastic type/polymer, combination types, product area and food-contact vs non-food-contact distinctions.
Each country’s data was analysed by Resource Futures, setting the material proportions to the scale of waste managed nationally. Clear visual outputs were produced for CEFLEX to enable better comparisons and assessment of overarching trends across the dataset.
Information gathered on the amounts and types of plastic packaging collected in waste streams will help to determine and accelerate development of the infrastructure, processing and end market applications needed to deliver a circular economy for packaging materials. These insights will also support Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) reforms and other schemes, highlighting what changes are needed to go ‘circular’ when it comes to plastic packaging.
Resource Futures has incorporated methodology learnings from this innovative plastics study, which will allow us to provide unique insights to all waste composition studies undertaken by our experts.
