Block 2. Circular Economy.
Coordinated by PlasticsEurope
The goal of the session was:
- Discuss the Legal framework, Private Sector Initiatives and R&D Projects.
- Focus on projects to mitigate the arrival of waste in the environment, with special attention on collection, treatment and recovery of waste.
Chairperson:
- Ignacio Marco, General Manager of the Iberian Region of PlasticsEurope.
Speakers:
Legislative framework
- Margarita Ruiz - “Spanish roadmap towards a circular economy” - General Subdirector on Waste. Ministry for the Ecological Transition. Government of Spain.
- Joachim Quoden - “Circular Economy Package and Single Use Plastic Directive Challenges and Solutions” - Responsibility Alliance EXPRA - Extended Producer
Round of questions
Industry initiatives
- Tony Kingsbury - Alliance to End Plastic Waste – Dow Chemical
- Ana Gascón - Eco-innovation initiatives in Coca-Cola - Coca-Cola Iberia
Round of questions
I&R Projects
- Sonia Albein - Repesca-Plas and Oceanets projects. - AIMPLAS
- Begoña de Benito - Innovative projects - ECOEMBES
- Isabel Goyena - Life Eps-Sure project - CICLOPLAST
Round of questions
Legislative framework
- Margarita Ruiz - “Spanish roadmap towards a circular economy” - General Subdirector on Waste. Ministry for the Ecological Transition. Government of Spain.
Margarita talked about the need to move towards a circular economy model which has several advantages from different points of view, such as environmental, economic, and social. Due to all these benefits, the European Commission created an Action Plan for the European Union in 2015, with 54 measures, including a set of basic waste regulations. This action plan was based on production, consumption, waste management and reintroduction of secondary raw materials into production processes. She highlighted the fact that the action plan has almost ended, since these measures are currently ongoing and others have finished.
Then, she talked about the national framework, in which the Spanish Strategy on Circular Economy was established in 2017 in a High-Level Conference adapted to our society and our environment. It was the result of inputs by different sectors, such as local administrations, research sector, autonomous producers’ sector, waste management sector, etc.
She stressed that, in February 2018, a draft with the Circular Economy Strategy (2018-30) was developed, which involved short and long-term actions to reach the circular economy goals. She explained that the aim of the proposed short-term actions (2018-20) was to achieve results by 2020, to verify the efficiency of those actions and to obtain results and corrections. With regard to the 2030 objective, a new strategic goal was included, which is to raise material productivity by 30% by 2030.
Simultaneously, it is intended to involve all sectors, from companies to social and economic agents, to sign a pact towards the circular economy. Those who sign it must show evidence of their progress towards the circular economy plan through the indicators they use to measure it.
The strategy goal has 12 general objectives linked to the 12 commitments of the circular economy pact, among which is to protect the terrestrial and marine environment and its biodiversity, improving people’s health by reducing the consumption of non-renewable materials, improvements in marine litter management, guidelines to improve production efficiency, innovation on sustainable consumption, etc.
She explained that the Spanish action plan is based on the same axes as the action plan of the European Commission, but has also incorporated three additional measures: water reuse, horizontal thrust on participation and awareness and another one on over-employment and education.
She mentioned that the Spanish Action Plan contains 74 action lines with 111 measures and the budget for its implementation is €632 million.
She finished the speech talking about the interministerial group and its aim, which is to quantify whether the 74 measures in the action plan contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases through the information given by the Climate Change Office. She highlighted that many of the strategies overlap in the methodology, providing overstated data on greenhouse gas reduction; therefore, strategy corrections are required.
- Ministry for the Ecological Transition. Government of Spain.
- Joachim Quoden - “Circular Economy Package and Single Use Plastic Directive Challenges and Solutions” - Responsibility Alliance EXPRA - Extended Producer
Joachim talked about the origins of EXPRA, which was founded 6 years ago from the non-profit alliance of 26 members and entities in charge of packaging and its subsequent collection and recycling in 24 different countries.
He stressed that EXPRA acts as the authoritative voice and common political platform representing the interests of all of its packaging recovery and recycling organizations, such as Ecovidrio and Ecoembres from Spain.
He said that its goal is that all the containers that are on the market are kept in the circle and find a second life, on the one hand promoting the circular economy and, on the other hand, defending their common interests as packaging companies, solving the problem of plastic in a coherent way, working together with the governments and political forces of the different countries.
With the support of the governments, they are committed to doing their job, which is to keep this circular economy circle going and to ensure that there is a balance between governments and waste management companies. He said that there is a problem, which is that there is no control by the European Commission to control what the European members are reporting.
He then discussed the technical challenges of EXPRA, such as Promote Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging waste, promote a sustainable and efficient EPR scheme, non-profit, boosted by the industry and which should offer a service of public or collective interest, and promote Best Practices for the separate collection, sorting and recovery of used containers.
He talked about the policy of banning single-use plastic products and what it will mean from an economic viewpoint, but also how EXPRA assume that costs are not going to be a problem since their policy states that “what can be done for the environment, must be done”. He highlighted that it is obvious that the fees will increase. He mentioned that nowadays an input of money of 5 billion is injected into the European system for EPR and deposit and it will rise to 20 billion per year, if it is done in the best way.
He claimed that industries are working together to change the composition of their plastics and be able to solve the problem. He mentioned that a tool has been developed to see whether or not packaging is recyclable; this tool will be online soon, so citizens can buy those packages that they know can then be recycled.
He emphasizes and defends the need to educate the population.
- To Margarita Ruiz: Related to the circular economy strategy: 1. What are the obstacles to public and private cooperation? 2. When you showed the value of costs, they seem insufficient to turn waste into new resources.
Margarita: Concerning the first question, public-private partnerships have been present from the beginning. In order to progress with these partnerships, a circular economy council has been created where all the suggestions from stakeholders will be heard.
Concerning the second question, within the section on water, the state has part of the authority while waste is delegated to local and autonomous communities. Therefore, the waste budget is lower, because it only considers the state budget and not the budget allocated by autonomous communities or local entities.
- To Joaquim Quodem: When do you think there will be a methodology for the unified measurement of globally accepted recycling?
Joaquim: It is currently complicated to measure the effect of these objectives but he thinks ways will be found to do it. He highlights the responsibility of the European Commission to monitor and unify the protocols, so that they can be comparable.
- To Joaquim Quodem: Looking at the EPR system, can we find some preventive measures where the directive says how members can develop these preventive measures?
Joachim: All members have programmes to help companies to improve packaging or eliminate unnecessary packaging and they try to help them to do the right things.
We cannot force them; we can only try to help them. If we consider how much plastic packaging is bought per person and why, it is difficult or impossible for us to answer, because this is a social discussion. We can consider that to buy more packaging in small portions is a problem in today's society; however, food waste is being reduced, which is good. To know where is desirable, and not to put plastic packaging represents a daily discussion because there will always be arguments for and against, although many of them are going to be withdrawn due to public pressure.
- To Margarita Ruiz: How do you see the reduction of so much plastic ending up in the dump?
Margarita: She thinks that different measures need to be taken in different areas of legislation. Landfill cost, at least in Spain, is very low; therefore, the Royal Decree on Landfills is being revised (possibly new information on landfill legislation will come out in May). This new legislation has endeavoured to ensure that the cost of discharge includes all those costs that were not internalized.
There will also be an attempt to achieve more and better separate garbage collection. The aim of these measures is to reduce discharges in Spain.
Industry initiatives
- Tony Kingsbury - Alliance to End Plastic Waste – Dow Chemical
Tony talked about the creation of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste and its aim, which is to find a solution to the plastic problem. They think that the biggest problems concern those countries where there is a high population and there are no waste treatment plants, such as Asia, Vietnam and Indonesia. Therefore, the Alliance is focused on these countries to invest money and effort to resolve the problem.
He mentioned some organizations that try to deal with the problem but in a fragmented way. This means focusing on developed countries where there is not the real challenge because there is not as much need for investment in infrastructure as in underdeveloped countries. In these countries there is no infrastructure to manage, collect or treat waste.
The solution that they are working on is a combination of expert knowledge, from producers, brand owners, management companies, NGO’s with experience in these places, etc. He remarked the importance of the cooperation of industry, government and NGO’s to solve this problem.
This is the biggest alliance of this kind, non-profit and with specific assignments and large-scale solutions to prevent plastics from arriving or remaining in the environment. These solutions include reuse, recovery, redesign and anything that can be done to prevent this material from ending up in the environment.
He said that all the companies involved in the Alliance have committed to donating money up to $1.5 billion to create infrastructure to recycle waste, withdraw plastic waste, waste collection systems as well as raising awareness and support for material innovation, more efficient packaging designs, waste disposal technologies, all based on science and economics.
He stressed that education is especially important, particularly where people are not used to managing waste, and this has to be supported by local and federal governments. Also, he stated that clean-up projects play an important role in raising awareness.
Much of the work of the alliance is focused on whether they are effective in the actions they are carrying out. He ended by saying that The Alliance was formed recently; there is still a lot of organization needed, but it is possible to see how many projects have appeared in a short space of time.
Tony Kingsbury – Dow Chemical
- Ana Gascón - Eco-innovation initiatives in Coca-Cola - Coca-Cola Iberia
Ana talked about the eco-innovation measures in Coca-Cola, and their work preventing plastic pollution in those countries where they work. Coca-Cola believes that the cooperation of industry, the administration, citizens, customers, NGO’s, could resolve the problem of plastic as a whole.
She talked about some initiatives that Coca-Cola launched, such as the international strategy “A World Without Waste” by 2030, the European Strategy “This is Forward” by 2025, where all Coca-Cola’s packaging must be part of the circular economy, Coca-Cola also undertakes to collect the equivalent of all the packaging that they sell to prevent them from becoming marine litter in Spain and Portugal by 2025. In addition, they commit to 50% of plastic packaging being made from recycled PET, 100% of the portfolio being 100% recyclable and to collecting and preventing all Coca-Cola packaging from being litter and specially reaching the sea. Thus, they are committed to informing their customers and consumers in order to raise public awareness about recycling.
She talked about the actual data of the Coca-Cola portfolio and their aim to increase the percentage of recycled PET, recycled glass bottles and recycled glass cans in their products. They are also going to introduce transparent plastic in all the products that they manufacture to allow them to move towards a circular economy. They also try to lighten materials, including plastics, glass and cans. She stressed that they also want to include material of renewable source in the packaging.
She explained that Coca-Cola is working closely with start-ups and companies that contribute to the innovation process. They also work on plastic reduction in secondary packaging.
To achieve all the goals, they collaborate with recycling plants by adapting their packaging to the identifiers of the different plants. They are starting to collaborate with chemical recycling from Brussels.
She presented the “Circular Seas” project (“Mares Circulares”), which has three main axes: remove waste by coastal clean-ups and a fishing for litter programme, education and population awareness-raising and fostering solutions for the future, which has the aim of investing in three university degrees and supporting start-ups linked to marine litter from a circular economy viewpoint.
She ended by saying that the first promotion of the project has been very successful, due to the participation of more than 170 organizations, public administrations and companies that have been involved.
Ana Gascón - Coca-Cola Iberia
Round of questions
- To Tony Kingsbury: The Alliance is a new organization. Do you have any guidelines for decision-making when selecting the countries in which actions should be taken and the projects you will support?
Tony Kingsbury: Yes, a decision-making brief has recently been published, which indicates the priority order to carry out a project or to clarify what are the things that they will support in case someone wants to make a proposal. This does not mean that they are looking for solutions only for Indonesia and India; they are focusing on places where there are big amounts of waste.
- To Ana Gascón: Coca-Cola’s approach focuses mainly on recycling, but have you investigated the deposit system with the idea of reusing glass bottles?
Ana Gascón: 92% of Coca-Cola glass is returnable glass, so they already have a very efficient glass deposit system. Concerning plastics and cans, solutions are being sought to reach 100%, but more time and research are needed.
- General question: There are companies that cannot invest in innovation. How can we support them?
Answer: Tony Kingsbury says that SMEs have to be more creative to have a successful business. Innovation is focused on solving this huge problem. Ana says that Coca-Cola has an initiative called "hostelry for the climate", in which guidelines are given to the sector to try to mitigate its impact on climate change. Coca Cola asserts that large companies have to be responsible for transferring these commitments to medium or small companies because, in this way, everyone will be more competitive.
- To Ana Gascón from Xavi Delgado (Waste Agency of Catalonia): With regard to the deposit-refund system and in accordance with the single-use plastic directive and the target of 90% collection for the recycling of beverage bottles, is the Coca-Cola team thinking of other alternatives to be able to reach 90%?
Ana: The legislation sets 90%; however, Coca-Cola's strategy is 100% return of all its packaging. They are open to new solutions but want the solutions taken to be as efficient as possible.
- General question from Olga Villacañas (Ocean52): What are the measures that companies are taking with regard to the arrival of plastic pellets, from industry, which appear on the coasts of Catalonia, the Atlantic part of France or the United Kingdom?
Answer: Tony Kingsbury says that the plastics industry is taking this very seriously. Dow has clean-up systems in order to make sure that in the case of a spill in the plastics industry it can be cleaned, avoiding an impact and preventing these pellets from reaching the sea. They also have a collection device in the sewage systems. New challenges are, on one hand, to go beyond the facilities, and control transport companies to prevent the input of pellets into the sea and, on the other hand, to take action at recycling plants where many infiltrations occur.
They work with local authorities to analyze pellets and find their origin, to eliminate whatever is behind these discharges. Ignacio Marco says that, at that Spanish level, the programme from the United States has also been implemented and has been promoted as Plastic Europe (in Europe). In the Iberian Peninsula all members and some transport companies have signed it. Measures to prevent the release of pellets into the environment will be implemented, such as filters in the sewerage system or nets to prevent them from falling to the ground, and, in case this happens, they must have a quick pick-up.
- To Tony Kingsbury from Ignacio Marco: Wants to know about the projects budget and whether there are any to be carried out in North Africa, as it would have an impact on the Mediterranean due to its proximity.
Tony Kingsbury: He says that Africa is in its crosshairs and they are exploring opportunities with partners and awaiting their proposals for intervention in Morocco and even Egypt. They have already begun to invest in awareness programmes.
- To Ana Gascón from Ignacio Marco: Asks about innovation and eco-design and the main obstacles that have been found.
Ana Gascón With regard to caps attached to bottles, it is not yet being implemented as it is not mandatory yet, but innovation processes are being invested in. The challenge is to improve on eco-innovation when we think we are pretty innovative, so a constant improvement becomes more and more difficult. The next improvements that we want to introduce in the market are the material coming from other recycled material, and to
increase the percentage of recycled PET in some packaging. To achieve 100% recycled PET in all products, it is required to supply recycled PET in the market. All the eco-innovation processes are linked to the whole packaging management chain. So it doesn't just depend on what Coca-Cola wants, but also on the materials they have available in the market.From left to right: Ignacio Marco (PlasticsEurope), Ana Gascón(Coca-Cola Iberia) and Tony Kingsbury (Dow Chemical)
I&R Projects
- Sonia Albein - Repesca-Plas and Oceanets projects. – AIMPLAS
Sonia talked about two projects, Repesca-plas and Oceanets.
She explained that marine litter has been identified as a global problem, and has 3 main impacts on biodiversity: ingestion or tangling of species with marine debris, economic damage (fishing, tourism or aquaculture), and there is also a problem with waste loss. If this waste does not reach the sea, it can be managed to generate a product that is then recoverable.
Repesca-plas is a national project to be developed in 4 years. The first stage involved mainly the characterization of waste collected.
The second step is more focused on make a sampling protocol for national standardization, also, a range of detailed ecotoxicological analyses (in both polymers and additives) and a technical-economic feasibility to treat marine debris on treatment plants.
The primary general aim is to reduce the waste found in the sea. There are also specific goals which are to increase knowledge about marine debris composition as well as evaluate the possibilities of recoverable waste and transfer replicability spreading the project.
She explained that the project methodology is similar in both phases. It involves the passive removal of marine litter by volunteer fishermen during their working day and its disposal in containers located in the ports, where the waste is characterized by the MARNOBA platform. Moreover, the plastic fraction is sent to AIMPLAS, where it is characterized according to its nature, to check what is the most common and how it arrives. They also do research on processability and recovery of waste.
She mentioned that they have focused on two polymers, PET and LDPE (low density polyethylene). PET has not been mechanically recycled due to its state of degradation and impurity level. However, as regards LDPE, transformed plates have been successfully made.
Ecotoxicity was analyzed on 3 species in different substrates: domestic packaging, industrial packaging, octopus pots and fishing nets. Toxicity was only observed in a sea urchin larva with the fishing net as substrate. She highlighted that the concentration levels in trials did not represent the concentrations found in the marine environment
In the second year, a more exhaustive cleaning or manual selection treatment is carrying out on those bottles that present a lower degradation level, and part of LDPE wastes mixed with other polyolefins will be used to produce urban furniture as well as marine useful products to fishers in terms of be grateful for developing these tasks.
Regarding ecotoxicity tests, during the second phase of this project it will be check if toxicity is due to the polymer, additive or pollutants that bioaccumulate on the net in the environment.
Oceanets is a European project under Blue Economy call.
It has a total duration of two years and aims to prove the technical and economic viability of recovery fishing nets to produce a valuable final product as well as to prevent marine debris.
An ICT tool will be developed to geolocate Hot Spots of lost nets and their collection. The aim is to prevent their loss and to recover this waste, promoting their removal from the sea.
The main steps of the project with the extracted fishing nets will be pre-treat it (fine crushed) and then, if necessary, add different additives to improve the quality of the product. Afterwards, it is sent to Sintex to spin and make textile fibre for the manufacture of sportswear, thus giving a new life to fishing nets.
She ended by saying that they obtained better results than expected in the first part of the project.
Sonia Albein - AIMPLAS
- Begoña de Benito - Innovative projects – ECOEMBES
Begoña de Benito summarizes the Ecoembes framework, after 20 years helping to integrate the circular economy based on the 17th SDGs.
She talked about the Circular lab, which is a circular economy laboratory, located in La Rioja. It is a collaborative area on a real scale with people specialized in different subjects. She explained that the Circular lab works in 4 action areas: smartwaste, future packaging, citizen science and entrepreneurship.
She introduced the three projects they are working on. The first one is about a Bio-Bio Container, where they are researching the creation of a container with a polymer of vegetable origin. The second project is LIBERA Makers, aimed at generating courses for professional training focused on the construction of instruments and ways to capture marine litter. The third one was the Plastic Leak Project, focused on the plastic life cycle, from the moment it is produced, until it becomes or does not become waste. The objective is to find the weak points of the production-consumption-management chain to act in the right place.
Begoña de Benito – ECOEMBES
- Isabel Goyena - Life Eps-Sure project – CICLOPLAST
She introduced Cicloplast, a non-profit entity which represents manufacturers of raw materials and converters of plastic containers. The entity promotes projects to prevent and recycle plastic waste, carries out awareness-raising campaigns and green volunteering. She explained that it is a three-year project and its goal is to recycle and implement a series of procedures with EPS (expanded polystyrene) fish boxes, and to transform them into another type of polystyrene packaging (dairy packaging or extruded polystyrene trays).
She mentioned that despite its bad reputation, polystyrene is one of the plastics that are best recycled, because it can be recycled in several ways; the most common system is mechanical recycling, with very little loss of recycling, only with crushing and pressure. She said that the product obtained is mainly used as an insulating material in construction.
The project deals with physical-chemical recycling to provide polystyrene with enough purity, allowing this material to be in contact with food; she said that to date this is not possible. She highlighted the fact that fish boxes are not considered as domestic waste; therefore, they do not have an organized collection system and depend on the producer looking for this system, which is expensive due to the air that is transported.
She stressed the fact that disposal landfill costs in Spain are very low; therefore, in many cases the option is landfill instead of recycling.
She explained all the steps of a project that they are carrying out with El Corte Inglés, which involves the entire process from the collection, production of the recycled final product and its return to El Corte Inglés.
She explained that this project contributes to European policies in the circular economy package, in directives (since it reduces the amount going to landfill), plastics strategies due to the saving of raw material and the prevention of marine waste production.
Isabel ended by saying that they are expecting to build a semi-industrial-sized plant to reduce the use of landfills and reduce the use of virgin polymers, energy and water, as well as to increase jobs.
Round of questions
- From Francisco López (Technical University of Cartagena) to Sonia Albein: Do you know which boat has picked up the marine litter, where and if there is a mapping of the areas covered?
Sonia Albein: Yes; it depends on each fisherman's guild but the boats are monitored and their fishing areas are known. In the III phase of Repesca-plas, an analysis of density and location of the marine litter found will be performed.
- Same person to Begoña de Benito: Are there any previous designs before collecting trash from the bottom?
Begoña de Benito: She says that they are starting with the Project now; therefore, she cannot say anything until they obtain the results, but surely there will be.
- Ana Cabezas asks Sonia Albein: How do you know where the fishermen pick up the debris, because it's not the same to know where the boat has made a track as where exactly it was caught or with which casts.
Sonia Albein: We work with the fishermen before starting the project, seeing the areas and coordinates where they usually fish. Rubén from Vertidos Cero Association says that they follow them through specific software and that it is intended to continue with a better one. Because of the speeds at which they sail, they know more or less when they are casting. It is true that it is not known, except in very specific cases, exactly when this rubbish gets into the boat because there are vessels that operate for a week and make many sets during that period. However, with those boats that make great fishing efforts and bring marine litter ashore daily, it could be known where they have been fishing.
- From Ignacio Marco to Isabel Goyena: Polystyrene is specifically mentioned in the single-use plastics regulation. What impact can it have on the project?
Isabel Goyena: The project will not be affected because fish boxes are not within the single-use directive. It is true that by citing polystyrene as a banned product, although it is not the most common marine waste material, it has revolutionized the market. It is important at the project level because it is in the spotlight of the directive. One of the solutions for commercial fish trays is to revalue the waste produced and to reduce the management of this waste at a lower cost.
- From Juan Pablo Pérez (AEBAM) to Isabel Goyena: What is the logistics cost of the EPS and at what point in the chain is compaction recommended to lower the costs of the process?
Isabel Goyena: Right now they are investigating several options where there are compactors and the possibilities of having required staff, such as big supermarkets or large ports. A compacting machine would cost around €4,000 plus the staff. She mentions as an example the port of Vigo, which has a compactor with good waste management.
Ignacio Marco - PlasticsEurope.