Plastics recyclers have released a set of baling quality guidelines to improve the plastics recycling market’s advance towards circularity.

Ton Emans, PRE President and Chairman of its LDPE Working Group, said: “It is time to understand that each product needs to be sorted towards a specific stream to keep the value of plastics - these guidelines are the first step towards programming circular economy. Circularity of plastics can only be achieved through quality. Defined and harmonised quality is needed to build sustainable waste management operations across Europe.”

Casper van den Dungen, PRE Vice-President and Chairman of the PET Working Group, said: “PET recycling market has been growing as a result of focusing on the high-end applications of recycled PET. Nevertheless, is it necessary to improve the quality of the input that reaches recycling plants. This will drive quality of the collected and sorted PET. 

Plastic Bales - new guidelines are available from PRE

“In line with the PRE Design for Recycling guidelines, which can differ per product colour, also colour based guidelines were developed to preserve the value of these materials.”

Herbert Snell, Chairman of the HDPE/PP Working Group, added: “The recent limitation of exports of collected plastics to China has shown that quality definition was too poor to get accepted by advanced recycling companies. Loss of value but also loss of potential feedstock is the price the consumer will have to pay in the long run.”

The guidelines developed by Plastic Recyclers Europe specify the main properties that define the origins and the characteristics of the sorted waste. The guidelines are based on the following features: Impurities by percentage, to define types of impurities and expected maximum quantities; transport, assessing traceability in the supply chain; and ways to define a company responsible for the specification.

Currently the bales characterisation guidelines are available for four different resins: clear, light blue, clear/blue and mixed coloured PET Bottles; PE-HD Packaging; PE film; PP film.