EPRO

Save the Date: 4th International Recycling Forum: 10-11 December 2024 | Dorint Hotel, Wiesbaden. The International Recycling Forum is back! Organised again by RIGK GmbH and with support from EPRO too! The previous forum saw 150 experts from 22 countries attend. This year’s forum "Networking towards a Circular Economy" will provide a platform for innovation and discussions on the future of plastics recycling. Forum sponsors include EREMA Group , Herbold Meckesheim GmbH and plastship GmbH, and EPRO Manager Mike Jefferson will be moderating the sessions on topics including design for recycling, recycled content, reuse, new recycling technologies, chemical recycling and lots more! If you are interested in becoming part of the forum you can contact Mirco Gattinger directly, there is still room for coveted speaker positions or exhibition and sponsorship opportunities. Registration and further information is available here: https://lnkd.in/eMPtvhVE To the RIGK press release: https://lnkd.in/eUPcEXJM #forum #collaboration #circulareconomy #design4recycling #recycledcontent #recyclingtechnologies

Today marks the final day of the EPRO - European Association of Plastic Recycling and Recovery Organisations's General Meeting in Brussels. Thank you Valipac for your wonderful hospitality! We've had a fruitful three days of collaboration, discussion, information sharing, site touring and not forgetting....chocolate tasting! After the very insightful EPR for C&I packaging seminar with Valipac and EXPRA - Extended Producer Responsibility Alliance on Wednesday, Thursday saw delegates attend a site tour of Renasci Oostende's chemical recycling facility. This was a fantastic opportunity for EPRO - European Association of Plastic Recycling and Recovery Organisations and EXPRA - Extended Producer Responsibility Alliance delegates to explore the intricacies of a chemical recycling plant and open discussion on sustainable recycling solutions. Today, we finished with some of our Working Group meetings, taking advantage of the opportunity to meet together in-person and covering a lot of topics including the EU's Joint Research Centre's recent projects, looking forward to next steps within the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulations, and Waste Shipment Regulations, design for recycling bodies in member countries, and monitoring traceability in recycling supply chains within countries, and lots more! A big thank you to all our fantastic members for joining us, and of course to Valipac for organising such a memorable event. #epr #ppwr #recycling #regulations #sitetour #C&Ipackaging

A big thanks to Renasci Oostende for the welcome and to Valipac for organising this insightful experience for EPRO - European Association of Plastic Recycling and Recovery Organisations and EXPRA - Extended Producer Responsibility Alliance members!

The seminar 'EPR-schemes for C&I packaging: the future has begun' - jointly hosted by Valipac, EXPRA - Extended Producer Responsibility Alliance and EPRO - European Association of Plastic Recycling and Recovery Organisations is well underway. EPRO's Mike Jefferson has presented on developments in C&I EPR Systems across Europe and beyond, using information provided by members of EPRO - European Association of Plastic Recycling and Recovery Organisations and EXPRA - Extended Producer Responsibility Alliance. Thank you to everyone who took part in the survey. Some insightful sessions to come this afternoon with discussions focussing on operational, financial and ethical aspects of C&I packaging recycling including how to ensure traceability and effective recycling. #EPR #C&I #recycling #packaging #seminar

Big congratulations to one of our members, VALORPLAST as the company celebrates its 30th anniversary!  EPRO - European Association of Plastic Recycling and Recovery Organisations were delighted to join VALORPLAST at an event in Paris to celebrate the milestone achievement.  We wish you all the very best for the future. #milestone #30years #memberachievement #celebration Photo courtesy of VALORPLAST - thank you!

Producer responsibility… without producers? EU legislation happening now will be critical in shaping Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for decades to come – and international best practice and progress on EPR could be undermined, with fees allocated to ‘public revenue’ rather than directly supporting required collection, sorting and recycling infrastructure. 🇪🇺 Europe has been a leader worldwide in EPR, with many dynamic and innovative independent schemes making progress on recycling rates and circular materials. 💶 They are funded largely by fees paid by packaging producers that are invested directly back into operations. ♻ 📈 In addition to bearing responsibility for managing packaging waste, producers are set to be made responsible for meeting minimum recycling targets, with the penalty for failure being loss of market. 🚫 🚫 However, a late addition to the Packaging and Packaging Waste (PPWR) could see the legitimisation of Producer Responsibility Organisations (PROs) with no producer-mandate. ✅ Producers with the legal obligation to meet recycling targets must be assured that PROs who collect fees for this purpose are working on their behalf and not in the interests of a third party who is not the legally obliged party. *The PPWR would endorse such PROs transferring EPR fees to the public purse with no guarantees that they would be invested into packaging separate collection, sorting and recycling infrastructure for the purposes of helping meet producers’ legal obligations on their behalf.* CEFLEX - together with numerous EPR schemes, recyclers, brands and material sectors - strongly recommends legislators delete provisions that mention ‘state-run PROs’, PROs with ‘no represented producer’s mandate’ and EPR fees being ‘categorized as public revenue’. EXPRA - Extended Producer Responsibility Alliance managing director, Joachim Quoden pinpoints the implications: “Why has EPR been developed? As a new economic tool to use not only the money but also the expertise of industry to move important environmental topics forward. A new approach, different from taxation where money is collected and spend by the government. Mixing the two approaches, reducing industry to a money machine is counterproductive and has proven to be not successful”. PROsPA EUROPEN Ursula Denison Monika Romenska EPRO - European Association of Plastic Recycling and Recovery Organisations Graham Houlder Emmanuelle Bautista Valpak Limited #EPR #PPWR #MissionCircular

EPRO - European Association of Plastic Recycling and Recovery Organisations is very excited to begin its journey into 2024 by welcoming three new members. PROREP Chile is Chile's first management system for non-household containers and packaging approved by the Ministry of the Environment and EPRO - European Association of Plastic Recycling and Recovery Organisations's first South American member! Twiice is a company founded by VALORPLAST to develop the recycling and reuse of industrial and commercial packaging in France; helping companies meet their new commercial and industrial Extended Producer Responsibility obligations coming into force in France in 2025. ENVALORA is a new Extended Producer Responsibility organisation in Spain helping packaging companies comply with their obligation to manage commercial and industrial packaging waste, and working to increase the circularity of the packaging in the way it is produced, used and managed. As an Association, we warmly welcome you all to EPRO - European Association of Plastic Recycling and Recovery Organisations and very much look forward to connecting with you through are working groups, webinars, and general meetings over the next year and beyond. #EPR #extendedproducerresponsibility #newmembers #chile #spain #france #plastics #plasticspackaging #recycling #reuse #plasticsindustry #plasticwaste #plasticwastemanagement #plasticpackaging #learningfromeachother Photo courtesy of RIGK GmbH at the November-December 2023 EPRO General Meeting

Over three days last week RIGK GmbH hosted EPRO - European Association of Plastic Recycling and Recovery Organisations's second General Meeting of 2023 in the beautiful city of Wiesbaden, Germany.  And what a wonderful few days we had! It was fantastic to see members share discussions on the important progresses made and some of the challenges that face us as a sector as we move into times of evolving legislation in the plastic sector, both in Europe and Globally. Members shared national news, policies and developments in plastic collection, recycling and due diligence systems that all work towards a common goal of increasing plastics circularity ethically and responsibly. Thank you to all our member speakers: RIGK GmbH in Germany, Nedvang - Nederland van Afval naar Grondstof in The Netherlands, PROREP Chile in Chile, Petco Producer Responsibility Organisation NPC in South Africa, Cleanfarms Inc. in Canada, RECOUP in the UK, Der Grüne Punkt – Duales System Deutschland GmbH in Germany, VALORPLAST in France, ENVALORA in Spain, Heura Gestió Ambiental in Spain and Valipac in Belgium. We were also very privileged to have presentations from several speakers from outside the membership including Dr. Lorena Fricke at IK Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen e. V. on developments in national collection systems for agricultural plastics in Germany, Giulia Carcasci, from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on the Voluntary Code of Conduct on the Sustainable Use of Plastics in Agriculture, Dennis Bankmann from CEFLEX - A Circular Economy for Flexible Packaging on the Design for Recycling and CEN-CENELEC standardisation process, Silke Einschuetz from AMI on recent developments seen in chemical recycling & capacity projections for the near future and Dana Mosora of CEFLEX - A Circular Economy for Flexible Packaging on experiences of setting up a plastics recycling facility in Ghana. A very big thank you to all external speakers for the knowledge they brought to the meetings further aiding important discussions between members and between countries. On Thursday evening we were treated to a most fascinating tour of Castle "Schloss Vollrads", one of the oldest wineries in Germany, situated above Oestrich-Winkel in the Rheingau region followed by a traditional local meal. The photo below, courtesy of Mirco Gattinger at RIGK is of the EPRO group about to enjoy the wine tasting tour! #plastics #circulareconomy #plasticsrecycling #interational #extendedproducerresponsibility #recycling #cooperation #partnerships

On the 19th October the Global Action Partnership for Extended Producer Responsibility (GAP for EPR) was launched online. The event, attended by EPRO, saw the launch of the GAP for EPR website: https://lnkd.in/eqQnJ_PS which contains a library of information, a helpdesk for questions on EPR and a community section which will host various events. This exciting new partnership has been set up by the OECD - OCDE, WWF and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and the secretariat is held by PREVENT Waste Alliance with support from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The partnership aims to build a common understanding of EPR, share expertise globally and feed into international processes on the topic, such as the global treaty on plastics pollution. #EPR #partnership #global #collaboration #knowledgesharing

This new report from the Nordic Council of Ministers shows support towards UNEP's international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (https://lnkd.in/g5He7ZKG). The report concludes that having global harmonised policies could have a significant positive contribution towards the journey to ending plastic pollution by 2040. #plasticspollution #plasticwaste #globaltreaty