PPRCE 2018: Bottled up demand

(Pictured above: A 50 percent recycled-content PET water bottle created for Czech Republic-based Karlovarské minerální vody.)

The bottled water industry provides a clean, healthy product to people around the world, but the industry sector has become keenly aware that when its bottles are discarded improperly, the effect is anything but healthy. Presenters on the topic at the 2018 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference Europe, held in Prague, Czech Republic, in early November, say steps are being taken to address the issue.

Advocacy groups have helped generate near “hysteria” on the plastic policy front, according to presenter Peter Börkey, who is principal administrator of the Environment Directorate of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Börkey referred to single-use plastic as “the new polar bear” for its current role as the center of attention of environmental advocacy groups.

An OECD report Börkey helped prepare has documented the “exponential growth in the use of plastics” globally, and some detrimental environmental effects that have followed. “What we see is that plastics are accumulating very fast in the environment,” he stated.

Relative to plastic packaging’s recycling rate, Börkey and the OECD have recommended the widespread use of recycled-content product labels and content rules, and possibly a tax on virgin plastics as ways to boost the current 12 percent market share of recycled-content resins. He also remarked that the “combination of polymers [used] makes recycling difficult,” and that supply-side interventions may be needed to “encourage product design toward better recyclability.”

Jean-Pierre Deffis of the Brussels-based European Federation of Bottle Waters (EFBW) said the industry he represents understands it is “under pressure—big pressure” because of the need to boost the recycling rate of its plastic bottles.

In Europe, Deffis said 87 percent of the bottled water sold is in plastic (predominantly PET, or polyethylene terephthalate) bottles, compared to just 12 percent in glass. A combination of EFBW commitments and EU regulations has the industry sector moving forward on recycling, he commented.

EFBW commitments include reaching a 90 percent PET bottle collection rate by 2025 and using 25 percent recycled-content PET resins (rPET) in its bottles, according to Deffis.

Alessandro Pasquale of Czech Republic-based Karlovarské minerální vody said his bottled water company, which operates in several Central and Eastern European nations, is investing to reach these targets.

Pasquale brought with him a 50 percent rPET-content water bottle his company brought to the market in 2018 after investigating the possibility with suppliers. Expressing skepticism of consumer goods companies who say such targets can take years to reach, he said the effort “took me one month.”

Pasquale said he is convinced other bottlers will have to follow his lead, based on public sentiment. “Non-sustainable products, at a certain point, will not exist anymore, because people will not back them,” he stated.

Michael Schneider of Germany-based Remondis says recycling collection and processing firms like his will be critical to reaching ambitious recycling targets, but they cannot do it alone.

Schneider said demographic and resource consumption trends mean the world “will need 100 percent recycling by 2050.” He said consumer products firms will have to “think about recycling up front” when designing products and packaging. “Most of all,” he added, “we’re going to need political wisdom.”

On the design front, Schneider predicted, “Eventually, everything needs to be 100 percent recyclable,” including packaging and vehicles. In terms of recycling processes, he said he views “chemical recycling” (reducing collected polymers to constituent components) as viable, but the German government, as one example, “has not yet deemed it [to be] recycling.”

The 2018 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference Europe event was Nov. 6-7 at the Corinthia Prague Hotel in Prague, Czech Republic. The 2019 conference will be in Barcelona Nov. 5-6, 2019.