Collaborative initiative Circular Economy for Flexible Packaging (CEFLEX) estimates that meeting recycled content rules under the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) will require 2.5 million tonnes of post-consumer material from flexible packaging by 2030.
In its report, ‘Secondary Applications for Recycled Content: Key Insights for Flexible Packaging’, the group projects that this requirement will increase to 5.9 million tonnes by 2035, when a 55% recycling rate target is due to apply across all plastic packaging formats.
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The study says that, between 2025 and 2035, an extra 440,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of flexible packaging made from post-consumer recyclate would need to be taken up annually to stay on course for PPWR compliance.
This includes recycled polyethylene, polypropylene and mixed polyolefins.
CEFLEX also points to a wider range of end-uses outside packaging, such as construction films, refuse sacks, transport packaging and horticulture products, as possible outlets for the recycled material.
Including those sectors, the total potential demand for post-consumer recyclate is put at 4.3 million tonnes in 2030.
According to the organisation, packaging on its own is unlikely to take in the full volume of recycled material required to underpin higher recycling rates.
CEFLEX external affairs director Arne Jost said: “Meeting recycled content targets is not only about recycling more. It depends on whether that material can move into real applications, at the right quality and at scale.
“This work helps identify where those markets are and what they require in practice.”
