Legislation for Plastics as Market Opportunities and Challenges for Plastic Industries and Sustainable Solutions
08 Nov 2023
Consumer Goods & Retail Packaging
Plastics are extensively used for a variety of products, and usually landfilled or not processed in a circular manner at the end-of-life. These mismanaged plastics have negative impacts on human health, socioeconomic conditions, ecological system, and our current global climate crisis. Governments and policymakers thus play a critical role in developing and implementing the necessary legislative framework and/or policy for dealing with plastic products and wastes. These legislations have either direct or indirect impacts on all the players along the value chain of plastics, starting from raw materials to product end-of life. Nevertheless, these legislations will also create business opportunities for those alternative, sustainable and circular materials. In this presentation, an exclusive overview of existing and upcoming legislation for “Sustainable and Circular Plastics” is given. Examples are: (1) upcoming Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) whereby minimum “Recycled Plastic Content” as well as “Recyclability index” of the new plastic packaging products will be required; and (2) new policy framework for biobased, compostable and biodegradable plastics, setting out for which applications such plastics are environmentally beneficial and how they should be designed, disposed and recycled. This is valuable for suppliers, developers, producers as well as investors of the plastic value chain. This presentation will address what these legislations could mean for your business and plastic industry, highlighting the potential business opportunities as well as challenges, and how TUV SUD could support the individual business and plastic industry along the supply chain to fulfil those regulatory requirements.