The last session of this year's Petcore Europe Conference focused on chemical recycling which was generally seen as one of the long-term solutions for a circular economy. Wim Hoenderdaal from Indorama Ventures Europe kicked-off the session with a general overview and stressed the following points: Chemical recycling is complementary to mechanical recycling and should recycle PET thermoforms, opaque bottles and other difficult to recycle PET products. The whole supply chain needs to invest and bridge the initial higher cost associated with the development and up-scaling of the new technologies. For Wim, chemically recycled or as he calls it "circular PET feels like a dream that is close to reality."
After Wim's introduction, Martin Stephan from Carbios and Maurizio Crippa from gr3n presented two chemical recycling projects in detail to end the second day of the conference. Whereas the project of Carbios relies on enzymes to rethink the lifecycle of plastics, the EU funded project Demeto with the technology of gr3n uses microwaves for de-polymerization.
Both projects are excellent examples that the PET industry is focusing on innovation in order to tackle today's circular economy challenge. Not only the last session of chemical recycling but the entire conference shows why it is so important to gather the entire PET value chain once per year for the annual Petcore Europe Conference - to bring the PET industry forward.
Petcore Europe Conference 2019
The next Petcore Europe Conference will take place in the first quarter of 2019. The exact date and place will be announced in the second half of 2018.Petcore Europe is the association representing the complete PET value chain in Europe. Its mission is to ensure that the entire PET industry is well aligned to enhance its value and sustainable growth, to represent the PET industry before the European institutions and other stakeholders, to ensure that PET is positioned as an outstanding packaging material and recognised as environmentally sound, to support and validate innovative packaging solutions from a recycling perspective, and to work with all interested parties to ensure a continuous increase of PET post-consumer collection and recycling.
Source: Petcore Europe
