Tony Calton, Roel van’t Veer, Henk Meerman
Papers # 2016 Berlin
The European plastic pipes and fittings industry has made a commitment through TEPPFA to use a quarter of a million tonnes of recycled material a year by 2020.
This presentation provides background to the growth in the use of recycled material for pipe applications and outlines some of the achievements to date and the challenges which lie ahead to meet the voluntary commitment.
The European Union has set out its intention to move towards creating a circular economy to address the issues surrounding the depletion of natural resources in Europe and the need to eliminate the disposal of plastic waste to landfill or incineration.
Other important EU initiatives such as reducing the environmental impact of product manufacturing are also relevant to the use of recyclate in place of virgin material.
For the plastic pipes industry, the challenge will be to utilise recycled material from many different waste streams whilst maintaining product performance and durability. The industry considers it to be essential that the desire to recycle should not be at the cost of compromising on the fitness for purpose or life expectancy of products.
Most current European Product Standards restrict the use of recycled material and thus modifications to these are required and potentially new material tests need to be developed to demonstrate durability.
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