The European Plastic Recycling Branch (EPRB) of EuRIC strongly welcomes the new European Commission proposal setting a recycled content target of 25% for post-consumer plastics into new cars as of 2030 as part of the revision of the end-of-life vehicles (ELV) Directive.

In line with EuRIC’s science-based advocacy^[1], these targets are absolutely needed to transition towards a circular economy for plastics in the automotive sector. Plastic demand in cars keeps on increasing yearly, representing today 10% of the plastic demand in the EU, being in third place after packaging and building & construction sectors. This material grants excellent properties to the automotive industry in terms of durability, flexibility and weight reduction. These properties contribute to the decarbonisation of the industry.

Unfortunately, more than 80% of the plastics reaching end-of-life in automotive end up landfilled or incinerated. Today, state-of-the-art technologies operating at an industrial scale are ready to turn automotive plastics waste into recycled plastics that can be used again by the automotive industry or in other applications using technical plastics, such as electronic and electrical appliances.

By setting a target of minimum 25% plastic recycled by weight from post-consumer plastic waste 6 years after the entry into force of the new ELV Regulation, the European Commission is sending the right signal at a time when low oil prices are badly affecting the demand for recycled plastics.

“Such targets will pull the demand for circular and low-carbon plastics into cars as well as boost investments in green industrial value chains’’ said Alejandro Navazas, Scientific & Policy Advisor at EuRIC. ‘’We look forward to further strengthen the collaboration with the automotive sector, including at standardisation level, to meet or exceed that target in a fully accountable manner’’, he concluded.

European recyclers represented by EuRIC also look forward to working with the co-legislators to extend the scope of recycled content targets beyond plastics.

^[1] https://euric.org/images/Position-papers/EuRIC-Call_for_Recycled_ContentPlastics.pdf, February 2020.