Mediaroom

Society’s awareness on environmental protection is increasing and so is the demand on highly efficient vehicles. The safe handling and proper disposal of components, parts and systems is a high priority for automotive suppliers. Suppliers reuse, repair and recycle parts. In fact, today more than 85% of the  weight of vehicles that reach the end of their lifecycle is reused or recycled on average across the EU. The auto industry has, thus, achieved the target set out in the End of Life Vehicles Directive.

When it comes to these materials and their environmental impact, plastics have gained a lot of attention, especially the single-use plastics. Around 25.8 million tonnes of plastic waste is generated in Europe every year.

Nevertheless, plastic materials are at the heart of solutions to make vehicles lighter, increase fuel efficiency, reduce carbon emissions and deliver enhanced safety applications such as seatbelts and airbags.

Being aware of such challenge, the European Commission launched the Circular Plastics Alliance in 2019. This platform’s main goal is to boost the EU market for recycled plastics to 10 million tonnes by 2025. The alliance covers the full plastics value chain and includes more than 180 organisations representing industry, academia and public authorities.

CLEPA is fully committed to support the Circular Plastics Alliance Automotive Group of expertise and together with other stakeholders, the association has agreed to build by March 2020 a research and development agenda on circular plastics.

Next steps

• Identify technological barriers to meet the market and regulatory needs
• By June 2021 map the investments and funding needed in collection, sorting, recycling and converting of plastics, and list the technological, economic and regulatory challenges to make these investments.