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Improvement of the plastic packaging waste chain from a circular economy approach

Project description

Driving the transition towards a sustainable and circular plastic economy

Europe's plastic market is failing to embrace the circular economy, with only 29.7 % of the 25.8 million tonnes of plastic waste produced annually in the EU being recycled. This translates to billions of euros being lost in the plastic market loop, and poses significant environmental challenges, contributing to 23.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. In this context, the EU-funded PlastiCircle project seeks to implement a holistic process focused on increasing the recycling rates of packaging waste in Europe. By improving collection, transportation, sorting and valorisation methods, PlastiCircle aims to raise collection and valorisation rates. The successful implementation of this approach could result in the creation of hundreds of new companies and thousands of new jobs.

Objective

The European plastic market is not currently aligned with the circular economy. More than 25.8 million tonnes of plastic waste are produced per year in the EU28 being recycled only 29.7%. This represents a clear loose in the plastic market loop (losses of €10.56bn). Moreover, this goes against the EU legislation on waste (high environmental impact; 23.8 Mt of CO2).
Low recycling rates of plastic are mainly due to the situation of packaging waste (i.e. main plastic waste fraction), since it is mainly domestic residue and consequently the quality of the material collected depends on the system of segregation available and the environmental awareness of citizens.

PlastiCircle aims to develop and implement a holistic process to increase recycling rates of packaging waste in Europe. This will allow to reprocess again plastic waste in the same value chain (i.e. Circular economy; closure of plastic loop). This process is based on four axes: collection (to increase quantity of packaging collected), transport (to reduce costs of recovered plastic), sorting (to increase quality of recovered plastic), and valorization in value-added products (i.e. foam boards, automotive parts like engine covers/bumpers/dashboards, bituminous roofing membranes, garbage bags, asphalt sheets/roofing felts and urban furniture like fences/benches/protection walls).

The target is to increase collection from 81.7% to 87% and valorization in a 9.8%. The implementation of PlastiCircle approach in Europe have the potential to increase collected plastic in 861,250t (reaching 14.14 Mt) and valorization in 1.59Mt. The valorization of this new material, represents a market value of €2.86bn-€7.95bn. Taking into account current figures of the plastic sector (turnover €350bn, 62,000 companies, 1.45M employees), this could imply creation of 500-1400 new companies and the generation of 11,900-33,000 new jobs in the medium to long term if PlastiCircle approach is extended in a EU level.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

IA - Innovation action

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-IND-CE-2016-17

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Coordinator

INSTITUTO TECNOLOGICO DEL EMBALAJE, TRANSPORTE Y LOGISTICA
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 010 750,00
Address
CALLE ALBERT EINSTEIN 1 PARQUE TECNOLOGICO DE VALENCIA
46980 Paterna
Spain

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Este Comunitat Valenciana Valencia/València
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 010 750,00

Participants (22)

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