The industry’s business-as-usual approach has reached a turning point and thoughtful design for recycling has become indispensable in products life cycle. Traditionally, packaging has been designed with functionality in mind, while its end-of-life management has been disregarded. Today, design for recycling stands as an essential measure to accomplish circular life for plastics and help divert plastics away from landfills and incineration plants, ultimately contributing to achieve higher recycling targets while saving natural resources.
RecyClass is an initiative aiming to help the plastics value chain find the correct way to approach and evaluate the design for recycling of packaging products, with the goal of improving their recyclability.
Three main pillars guide the activities of RecyClass:
- Recyclability Evaluation Protocols
- Design for Recycling Guidelines
- RecyClass Online Tool
These three pillars are interlinked, leading to sound/coherent and lab-based conclusions that are incorporated throughout the initiative.
Implementation of better design for recycling across the plastic packaging industry will lead toward higher quality recycling and hence provide higher quality of recyclates in the market. Brand owners, retailers and converters have the power to drive the change and eventually create a true circular economy for plastics.