Working together for a strong packaging cycle

‘Recycling together, creating values together’ – that is the guiding principle at Forum Rezyklat. After all, it is about combining climate change mitigation and resource conservation with long-term business success – such a circular economy can only work if all participants in the value chain pull together. Forum Rezyklat is the place where stakeholders from all sectors of the circular economy come together, forming links in order to develop practical and consumer-oriented solutions for recyclable packaging. They are also committed to increasing the use of recyclates in packaging. In doing so, they embrace state-of-the-art recycling technology.

The circular economy – using recyclate as a solution

Greater sustainability, less plastic waste, more efficient recycling – driven by their own sense of responsibility as well as consumers’ wishes and legislation, companies are becoming more and more involved in the circular economy. This is consistent with people’s increasingly environmentally conscious purchasing behaviour as well as legal requirements like the Packaging Act. From 2025, for example, plastic bottles up to three litres in volume should contain at least a quarter of recyclate, a figure that is set to rise to 30 per cent by 2030. At European level, too, there is movement in relation to recycling matters with the EU Commission’s ‘Circular Economy Action Plan’. Making sure that there is sufficient availability of recyclate as a raw material for packaging is imperative in this regard. This is where the commitment of the Forum Rezyklat alliance comes into play, because there is not enough recyclate at present.

The arrow made of plastic pellets above the bottles symbolises the recycling of plastic packaging

Forum Rezyklat – promoting cooperative recycling

Companies and institutions in the retail sector, branding and packaging industries, waste disposal companies and representatives from the world of politics use this platform to devise joint strategies and measures for sorting recyclable materials. Their desire here is to increase the recycling rate and the recycled content in packaging. The aim is also to optimise packaging and make it recyclable at the production stage so that it remains within the cycle as a resource. The participating companies devise the strategies and measures in specialist groups that focus on the following matters:

Digitisation

The aim of this specialist group is to make master data management easier. To this end, a standard, automatically processable data set for sustainability-related packaging information is being created both nationally and internationally. The focus here is on content-based definitions and descriptions, the creation of technical options and the dissemination of information on the master data attributes.

Technology and recyclability

The aim of the companies involved is to present solutions showing how more high-quality recyclates (of differing quality) collected from households can be used in packaging and how the cost of recyclates can be reduced.

End consumer communication

Cross-partner communication is designed to raise awareness of the circular economy and recycling among end users. To this end, communication campaigns are created that inform, motivate and involve customers. In 2019, the focus here was on the subject of sorting waste. In 2021, it was all about recycling, in 2020 about waste sorting. Another communication campaign is planned for 2023.

Reducing packaging

The aim here is to devise joint strategies for reducing packaging and implement appropriate measures. This involves taking stock of the available market solutions and identifying innovative and realisable approaches to at least reducing packaging wherever it cannot be avoided completely.

The aim of the CosPaTox consortium, which emerged from Forum Rezyklat, is to define a new material standard for packaging made from recyclate for detergents, cleaning products and cosmetics.

Forum Rezyklat has been able to initiate many processes and make progress in recent years. Examples include the labelling of products with a high recycled content. Another success is the inclusion of the recycled content of packaging materials in the GDSN (Global Data Synchronisation Network), the global network of certified master data pools. This can now be used to transparently communicate sustainability-related information within the supply networks – an important milestone in the international world of goods in order to proactively contend with regulatory requirements. The focus of the participating companies is on strategically developing Forum Rezyklat and addressing new issues within the framework of further projects.

The results of the expert packages flow into free trade publications, among other things. They support companies in preserving raw materials in the packaging value-added cycle and thus conserving resources to better protect the environment and climate.