The EU Plastics Strategy: An Opportunity to Build a Competitive European Market for Secondary Raw Materials

Plastic is everywhere in our lives and economy. In the European technology industries represented by Orgalime, plastic is a highly developed material used in complex products that delivers a wide range of performance benefits and inspires innovation. For example, plastic allows advances in weight reduction and miniaturisation throughout a variety of applications, such as electrical and electronic equipment, thereby reducing carbon emissions. It can be designed to meet very specific performance characteristics, including increasing energy efficiency or reducing waste.

 

At the same time, there remain undisputed environmental challenges stemming from the way our society uses, produces and treats plastics today. The European technology industries support further optimising the use of plastic throughout its life cycle in light of Europe’s broader ambition of a Circular Economy and to do so with the aim of modernising our economy and important long-term societal objectives in mind: a competitive, low-carbon, circular, sustainable economy that creates jobs and growth, and increases the quality of life of citizens.

 

Europe’s engineering and tech companies are global leaders in material efficiency innovation, overall product sustainability and the development of innovative waste management technologies – increasingly including digitally enabled solutions. This means that there is also an important business case for well-designed policy action and for helping to build a competitive raw materials market where primary and secondary raw materials can compete fairly with each other.

 

Download our position paper to read Orgalime's proposals on how to best achieve these shared goals.