Plastics organisations target harmonised recyclability testing protocol

United States – Three international plastics recycling organisations have entered into a partnership to co-ordinate efforts on testing protocols. The US-based Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR), Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE) and the European PET Bottle Platform (EPBP) recently formed the Global Plastics Outreach Alliance with a goal of harmonising design guides and recyclability testing protocols, and serve as a co-ordinated industry voice to create a Global Plastics Protocol.

Over the years, all of the organisations have developed testing protocols to determine the recyclability of a package or innovation. ‘As consumer brand companies expand their focus on sustainability, we identified differences between our protocols, which may require a company to conduct three separate tests to achieve the same recyclability designation,’ observes APR president Steve Alexander.

‘We hope to clarify those differences and align all segments of our testing protocols.’ Andreas Christel, who represents EPBP, pointed to PET recyclability tests as an example of the importance of the group effort.

‘In an ever-changing global economy, the last thing we need in the plastics recycling world is to make it more difficult for packaging engineers and designers to understand what protocol the innovation should address in order to assure recyclability,’ he says.

‘This effort will go a long way toward creating a truly global plastics recycling industry standard for certain resins.’