‘Don’t touch our feedstock’

A leading Belgian plastics recycler has expressed concern that the burgeoning chemical recycling sector threatens mechanical recyclers.

Raff Plastics co-owner Caroline van der Perre told the BIR Convention in Amsterdam that ‘chemical recycling is growing at our expense’. She noted that the rising number of chemical plants needed feedstock but the question was: where are they getting this material from?

‘Are they cannibalising our business?’ she asked. ‘Probably. At the very least, they are disrupting the market.’

Van der Perre argued the legal framework in Europe had to be standardised to encourage mechanical treatment. ‘We’re competing against big players capable of making big investments in chemical recycling. I am not against chemical treatment but please don’t touch our feedstock. What can be processed mechanically scrapped be done mechanically, period.’

Later in the session, other panellists argued that chemical recyclers still had to prove that the technology was a viable alternative. Plastics board member Sally Houghton from the Plastic Recycling Corporation of California said she was ‘still to be convinced’ by the technology. Fellow member Surendra Borad Patawari, ceo of the Gemini Corporation, said he had met many chemical recyclers and ‘none make money’.

Committee chairman Henk Alssema expressed concern that the biggest investors in chemical facilities were multinational petrochemical companies. Recycling International has previously reported views from leading voices in the industry that mechanical recycling should always be seen as the first means of recycling with chemical recycling used for complicated and less economic plastics.

Van der Perre also spoke about her Raff Plastic’s work, saying it had been treating industrial, production and post-consumer PP, HDPE, PS and PVC for more than 45 years. The family business was currently focussing on optimising its solution for PP. ‘We plan to build a pilot plant dedicated to this waste stream by next year and scale-up operations from there.’ In a bid to boost innovation in the sector, the recycler is working together with recent winners of the Plastics Recycling Europe Awards.

Her ambitious and can-do attitude won her the award for Best Female Entrepreneur of Belgium earlier this year. ‘It’s not an easy job or an easy industry, I’ll admit. Every time we want to invest in something to stay competitive, we have to convince the bank it’s a good idea and explain why the market is down – again.’