Project description
Increasing the use of recycled plastic
Recycling is one of the EU’s greatest tools in the fight against climate change. For instance, EU strategy demands that by 2025 10 million tonnes of plastic should be recycled and used for products in the EU market. However, less than half this amount is currently used this way, with most plastics ending up in landfills or incinerators. The EU-funded INCREACE project aims to resolve this issue by implementing interdisciplinary solutions throughout the entire plastic recycling value chain. The introduction of these solutions will increase recycled plastic amounts and build trust with stakeholders, manufacturers and the public, allowing for increased use of recycled plastic materials.
Objective
Increasing the share of recycled plastics in new products is a central aspect of the European Strategy for Plastics, adopted by the European Commission in 2018 as a part of the first Circular Economy Action Plan (2015). One of the main goals of the Strategy is to ?ensure that by 2025 10 million tonnes of recycled plastics find their way into new products on the EU market? , against less than 4 million tonnes in 2016. However, in 2016 only 8.4 million tonnes of plastics went to recycling facilities as input material. For this reason, the collection rate has to improve significantly and more collected material needs to reach recycling facilities instead of being incinerated or landfilled. Additionally, the demand for recycled plastics needs a boost, especially in added value applications where the current share is still zero or very low. Another precondition for the uptake of recycled plastics in added value products is trust. On the supply side, definitions, standards and traceability will help OEMs integrating recycled plastics into their business models. On the demand side, general acceptance of new materials will be crucial from all stakeholders, including manufacturers and the general public. The INCREACE project will tackle above mentioned issues through innovative and interdisciplinary solutions along the entire plastics recycling value chain embedded in a systemic framework. The project partners will develop new data-driven sorting solutions, combine complementary recycling technologies to increase the recycling yield and introduce new digital verification methods (blockchain) to create the required trust in the industry. The consortium will collaborate beyond organisational and sectoral boundaries to develop specific business-cases to proof the concept. The partners will provide targeted inputs into standardisation, policy making and foster active and inclusive engagement oof all relevant stakeholders as actors of the circular plastic transition.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwaste managementwaste treatment processesrecycling
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencescomputer securitycryptography
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementbusiness models
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicssustainable economy
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
80686 Munchen
Germany