To date, only approximately 11% of the effective plastics used is recycled in Belgium. Hence, there is a substantial imbalance between the potential EoL plastics feedstock availability and the actual plastics recyclates currently available and used in the market. To close this gap, it is imperative to have sufficient quantitative insights into the currently unrecycled EoL plastics, including the non-(separately) collected fraction (especially beyond household packaging which has been quite well studied) and into barriers that are hindering a higher plastics recycling rate. This is needed to help defining future recycling strategies.
Three knowledge institutions within the CAPTURE platform, including VITO, University of Antwerp, and Ghent University, are combining forces in the COOCK+-project Map4Plastics to address these challenges related to the ‘lost’ or ‘non-circular’ plastics.