Analysis of Drivers Impacting Recycling Quality
This study, based on a survey of twenty-five sorting plants for household packaging across Europe, examines the drivers and parameters that influence the quality, quantity and fate of household packaging recycling. The study examines the different drivers present for plant operators sorting and processing different material streams, the characteristics distinguishing higher quality recycling chains from lower quality recycling chains, and factors that tip the balance in favour of making quality improvements where there is only marginal financial benefit. It summarises findings in relation to the impact that policy and system design can have on the quality of recycling.
The factors found to be key to determining current quality of recycling were producer demand for secondary raw materials, the extent to which materials degrade in collection and sorting, and the scale and presence of products sharing relevant characteristics within collected waste streams. Where making improvements on quality had only marginal financial benefit, it was found that producer responsibility organisations (PROs) or other relevant authorities are likely to be able to improve qualities through influencing the scale of sorting operations, specifying sorting output fractions, as well as influencing producer behaviour in incentivising recyclability of their products and uptake of post-consumer recycled content.
GRANT Andy;
CORDLE Mark;
BRIDGWATER Eric;
CANFORA Paolo;
DRI Marco;
ANTONOPOULOS Ioannis;
GAUDILLAT Pierre;
2020-11-26
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC122294
978-92-76-26817-8 (online),
OP KJ-04-20-672-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC122294,
10.2760/510855 (online),
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