Examination of concrete measures to increase the demand for recycled plastics and plastic products containing recycled materials

This research project examines various instruments and measures that can be used to increase the demand for plastic recyclates or plastic products containing recyclates. While waste from the production and processing of plastics is already largely recycled, there is still considerable potential for increasing the recycling of end-user waste. At the same time, the recycling of end-user waste is a much greater challenge, partly due to its heterogeneity, so that instruments are needed to promote an increase here in particular. Therefore, only recyclates that originate from end-consumer waste (post-consumer recyclate, PCR) are included in the scope of this project. The first step is to examine how the use of recyclates can be reliably verified and whether new definitions or legal regulations need to be created for this purpose. The second focus of the study concerns the question of how public procurement can contribute to increase the demand for plastic products containing recyclates. For this purpose, procurement-relevant products are first identified in which plastic recyclates from end-user waste can be (increasingly) used in a meaningful way. After the identification of suitable products, practical proposals are developed on how the requirements for recycled content can be set in a legally secure manner when inviting tenders and awarding contracts. The recommendations are summarised in a practice-oriented handout and published as a separate publication. The third focus is on the instrumental design of quotas for minimum recycled content in plastic products. For this purpose, both product-specific and polymer-specific PCR quotas for plastics are considered. The key research objective is to find out how the demand for plastic recyclates as a feedstock for plastic products can be increased overall. For this purpose, products are first selected that are suitable for a product (group)-specific recyclate input quota and then concrete quota levels are proposed. With the polymer-specific substitution quota, a further possibility of quota specification is examined and related questions are discussed. Finally, both quotas are compared.