Expanding the market of recycled plastics
Main takeaways
- The recycling market is shifting from a market that is driven by prices to a market driven by consumer demands.
- Recyclers can stimulate the uptake of recycled content in products by ensuring a stable recycled material quality.
I've seen in the past five years a lot of interest from producers, from designers to start using
recycled plastic. Then when two years ago the virgin plastics became extremely cheap, that
interest faded away completely. Today virgin is expensive again so there is a lot of interest but
what is different this time is that all the societal studies show that the consumer now believes
that it is interesting. Five years ago, producers made this way because they were pushed by
investors. Today they are pushed by consumers and which makes me believe that the interest
will not fade away so easily as it did a couple of years ago. And I think that is definitely the
biggest driver behind the change that I expect over the coming years. Second thing is that
because of changes in legislation and then not so much in Europe, but much more in in the far
east where they start restricting the import of waste and mixed waste plastics. The export of
waste plastic from Europe to there is becoming more and more of a problem which means
that there is also from that side a trigger to invest and recycling capacity in Europe. The
availability of recycled plastic and the improvement of the quality of this available plastic in
Europe will drive also that increase in the use recycled plastic by producers.
The voice of the customers is getting louder and louder shouting, we need to make circular
products, to answer this voice. And also, on the other hand regulations are also standing on
our doorstep so we should make this. And what manufacturers have to realize is this isn't
done in a day to change from linear products, creating linear products towards circular
products. It is quite complex also implementing recycled plastics. It will take time to learn to
implement them for every organization and it will take effort to convince within the
organization stakeholders creating enough confidence to take brave decisions.
The plastic content will push the stakeholders to reuse more recycled materials. When you
speak with those stakeholders, you can directly see that yes, they want to do it.
But the key of those kind of companies is also the production manager, because for them it’s
a new challenge to integrate recycled plastic instead of virgin. Because they have to adjust the
parameters, maybe the molds and to adjust all the parameters to produce those new parts.
The same parts, but because they use another new material, they have to finetune the settings
and the tools and so on. So, this plastic content is a challenge for the stakeholders, but also
for the designers, because they have to take account the new properties, the specific
properties of those recycled plastics.
And for us recyclers, of course, we have to be able to guarantee a stable quality of the recycled
material we produce because we can understand that the stakeholder doesn’t want to change
every week the parameters of the machines. So, it’s also the role of the recyclers to produce
always the same quality with a complete line of production between the recyclers until the
stakeholders.
Expert 5:
I think we have many examples of new EEE products using plastic coming from waste
electronic products. I think the challenge is now to generalize this initiative done by some
pioneers. I think sensibilization training on these topics is a necessary first step to not include recycled plastics in every component. We have to be clear it’s technically and aesthetically
impossible, so we also have to be clear on that point. But everywhere is possible and I think
we are far from that today we don't introduce recycled plastic where it’s possible and if we
start by that I think it will be good way to prove that it can work.
Designing with recycled plastics
Main takeaways
- The aesthetics of a product remains a challenge with recycled materials. Reaching certain properties and finishing can be difficult and designers need to find creative ways to apply these materials.
- Improving the traceability of recycled materials can help stakeholders across the value chain to improve the quality of recycled materials.
Expert 1:
Well I think for recycled plastics that designers will need to be creative to bypass some of the
obstacles of recycled plastics. Because for example recycled plastics cannot be really high gloss
again, high gloss black for example is very difficult to create as a recycled grade. So certain
finishes of electronics products are always going to be difficult with recycled plastics. And
there are already really creative ideas and products that make use of the recycled plastics in
a different way, creating interesting surface textures which are, have a nice visible look and
also can become products that people really want or prefer. So, I hope to see more of that,
that designers become more creative with using recycled plastics and think of ideas that they
can really bypass those obstacles.
It’s important that designers or maybe the material suppliers are going to use the markers or
maybe sometimes digi-marks that they can prove the recycled content of the plastic and that
they can also convince the consumer or maybe the user that this is a product with recycled
plastics and that it has a lower environmental impact for example. And with these kind of
markers it's probably organizationally also easier to use them. So, I think that is one of the
important developments in that direction.
Expert2:
We do not only have to talk about design for recycling or recyclability as a theoretic concept.
I think most of the designers know what the theoretic concept means, but we should also look
into practicality.
How is a real recycling process looking like and how can I make my products in the best shape
that it will end up in the recycling process that we will have in our case in the household
appliances, looking at the lifetime, we will have in 10-15 years. And that’s a big challenge for
all the designers and engineers that in their design concept they have to take into account the
future of the recycling process which is not always known.
Expert 3:
I think we as designers have a big role to make this shift towards circular products and towards
circular society. It's not a problem, it's more of a great opportunity to be disruptive as
designers I would say so there’s the key to grow towards a circular economy in the end.
They are very very impressive materials where you can reach high goals with high-end
products in the end. It is just the fact that we need to go from an old knowledge based on
virgin materials towards new material and we should learn to implement them correctly. They
are different but they are not lesser than their virgin brothers or sisters.