July 2, 2024 The complexity of plastic polymers and even more so of additives has increased enormously in recent years. This makes the high-quality recycling of mixed plastic waste considerably more difficult. Some additives have now been strictly regulated or even completely banned for good reasons (“legacy additives”). Used plastics that still contain these substances are generally used for material or mechanical recycling. Consequently, products made from such recyclates are contaminated with these harmful substances. We therefore recommend, as already explained in our article in the journal Müll und Abfall “Kunststoffrecycling und gefährliche Stoffe – Risk Cycle”, avoiding the use of these recyclates for products with intensive contact with consumers until further notice. In our current article “Plastics Recycling and Hazardous Substances – Risk Cycle”, we also show that  the climate policy challenges for the plastics (and chemical) industry necessitate a defossilisation (‘feedstock change’). This turnaround can only succeed if solely high-quality recycling takes place in future; recyclates should primarily replace virgin plastics. This can only work if used plastics with a high degree of homogeneity and known formulation are collected separately, as is already the case today with PET bottles. In this context, we  would also like to point out inconsistencies in the current legislation on the European emissions trading system. The article by Prof. Dr. habil. Uwe Lahl and Dr. Barbara Zeschmar-Lahl is currently under review and can be viewed and commented on at preprints.org.

June 25, 2024

On June 18, 2024, the EU Commission opened the consultation procedure on its draft delegated act regarding the requirements for determining that greenhouse gases are permanently chemically bound in a product (COMMISSION DELEGATED REGULATION (EU) …/… of XXX supplementing Directive 2003/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the requirements for considering that greenhouse gases have become permanently chemically bound in a product). This is about Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU).

CCU could be an important way of not only not emitting CO2, but also incorporating carbon into products (and thus killing two birds with one stone). There is a consensus that the incorporation of carbon should be permanent. Chemically, the answer is simple at first glance: mineral carbonates meet this requirement. They are stable for centuries, perhaps even millennia.

But what about organic chemistry? It is indispensable for the future of society. So far, it has been based almost exclusively on fossil raw materials. In order to achieve the feedstock change (defossilisation) of the chemical industry, e.g. the plastics sector, we also need substances that are recycled and substances that are produced from sun, wind and CO2. However, according to the EU Commission, these substances are not ‘permanent’ simply because they can be incinerated. Therefore, cycles only make sense in terms of climate policy if we can imagine that they are permanent. If we do not have this imagination, there will be no regulation to bring this about. Within the framework of the Delegated Regulation on CCU, the Commission has the opportunity to develop this imagination.

Our statement on the EU Commission’s draft in this regard and the website for the consultation procedure can be found here:

June 13, 2024

Presentation by Prof. Dr. Uwe Lahl at the DGAW board meeting, 13 June 2024, Bremen: Sustainable circular economy must improve in two areas:

1. Recycling of plastics from cycles without a ‘closed and controlled chain’ ((EU) 2022/1616) leads to hazardous products. Products with or made from recycled materials must fulfil the same requirements as new products made from virgin plastic. A moratorium on the use of recyclates of unknown origin is therefore advisable for all plastic products that come into close contact with people (packaging, children’s toys, kitchen utensils, clothing, indoor products). Only recyclates from secure cycles should be used.

2. Open loop recycling, in which wood or cement rather than plastics are substituted, does not represent ecologically high-quality recycling. Quotas for open loop recycling therefore contribute nothing to the raw material transition in the plastics industry. This is why closed loop substitution quotas are being advocated, as provided for the first time by the new European Packaging Ordinance.

Prof. Dr. Uwe Lahl explained these proposals in more detail in his presentation at the DGAW board meeting on June 13, 2024 in Bremen. You can download his presentation via the link below.

June 7, 2024

The article by Prof. Dr. habil. Uwe Lahl and Dr. Barbara Zeschmar-Lahl on the topic “More than 30 Years of PVC Recycling in Europe — Need for Regulation” has been published in the Special Issue of Sustainability: Resources and Waste Management (Sustainability 2024, 16 (22), 4891).

As documented in our “Critical Inventory” (Sustainability 2024, 16 (9), 3854), the PVC industry’s track record to date of increasing the sustainability of PVC plastic is not convincing, although the industry takes a different view. The question, therefore, arises as to whether legislators should intervene in Europe or at national levels.

As we show in our paper, none of the waste disposal processes currently in use (mechanical recycling, energy recovery) have sufficient capabilities to absorb the additional quantities of PVC that will enter the waste management system from the existing stock in the future. Therefore, the only solution for today’s PVC waste, and especially the stock problem that is heading towards the waste management sector, is to collect and dispose of PVC separately. Chemical recycling and mono-incineration have the potential to solve the stock problem in the future. However, this will require the construction of separate collection and industrial plants, which, in the case of chemical recycling, will technically need two stages in order to separate the chlorine as HCl in advance.

The creation of a plant infrastructure with which PVC could be processed would relieve the other parts of the waste management sector of chlorine massively. VinylPlus/EuPC stated: “The European PVC manufacturers, converters and recyclers would be more than happy to process the waste if efficient logistic systems would exist to bring the waste to them”, and they “would welcome to make this separate collection mandatory.”

Now it’s Brussels’ turn.

Below you will find a link to download this and the previous article as well as the special edition with further interesting articles.

May 9, 2024

The article by Prof. Dr. habil. Uwe Lahl and Dr. Barbara Zeschmar-Lahl on the topic „More than 30 Years of PVC Recycling in Europe — A Critical Inventory“ has been published in the Special Issue of Sustainability: Resources and Waste Management (Sustainability 2024, 16, 3854).

PVC is the mass plastic to which the most diverse and quantitatively largest number of additives are added. This makes PVC difficult to recycle. In the 1980s, the PVC industry announced its commitment to improve the sustainability of the material through material recycling. But after three decades, the recycling result is rather meagre. The majority of PVC waste in Europe is still going to waste-to-energy plants. The many attempts to end the chlorine cycle via waste incineration and to expand chemical recycling in parallel have not been successful. The main reasons are the quantity and variety of additives, legacy chemicals (legacy additives), and economic interests.

At the end of 2023, the European Chemicals Agency ECHA presented an “Investigation Report” about PVC following a request of the EU Commission. In a further article, the authors analyse the regulatory consequences from their point of view. This article is currently in the review process and can be viewed and commented on at preprints.org.

Below you will find a link to download the article, to the Special Issue with further interesting articles, and to the second article under review.

April 30, 2024

The contractors were N³ Nachhaltigkeitsberatung Dr. Friege & Partner, Voerde (project management), and the Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP), Wuppertal, as well as BZL GmbH and Akademie Dr. Obladen, Berlin, as subcontractors. The final report on the project was published on the Federal Environment Agency’s website at the end of April 2024:

Friege H., Heidbüchel E., Zeschmar-Lahl B.: Indicators for sustainable management of chemicals. Contributions to upcoming development work under the new Global Framework for Chemicals. Ed.: Umweltbundesamt.

• UBA-Texte 79/2024 (English)
• UBA-Texte 78/2024 (German)

April 19, 2024

The updated article by Prof. Dr. habil. Uwe Lahl and his two co-authors on the topic of “Plastics recycling and hazardous substances – risk cycle” has been published in the  journal Müll und Abfall 4, 2024.

The production of new plastic articles has become increasingly demanding in terms of polymers and additive formulations. Can the recycling of mixed packaging plastics even meet today’s requirements for new products? We believe this is illusory. An honest assessment of the performance of post-consumer (PC) recycling of plastic packaging (packaging sold vs. recyclates in new products) for Germany shows: The result of quantitative material recycling is rather meager (perhaps 20%) and the recycled products are of inferior quality. Due to the overwhelming amount of data on hazardous substances (“legacy additives”) in plastic recyclates, we recommend that they no longer be used in consumer-related products (children’s toys, food contact materials/packaging, interior products, textiles, etc.).

Below you will find a link to the order form at Erich Schmidt Verlag.

March 25, 2024

We have been advising Wienerberger AG on the further development of its sustainability management for several years. This includes scientific advice on the preparation of the report on non-financial performance in accordance with the Sustainability and Diversity Improvement Act (NaDiVeG) and sustainability reporting in accordance with the GRI standard; this was also the case for the combined Annual and Sustainability Report 2023, which has been available for download on Wienerberger’s website since March 25, 2024.

February 8,  2024

The article by Prof. Dr. habil. Uwe Lahl and his two co-authors on the subject of “Plastics recycling and hazardous substances – Risk Cycle” (in German: Kunststoffrecycling und gefährliche Stoffe – Risk Cycle) has been published in the proceedings of the Berlin Conference on Waste Management and Energy – “Abfallwirtschaft und Energie 1” – by TK-Verlag.

Referring to current studies and scientific publications, the authors argue that the use of post-consumer recyclates (from packaging or technical products) for the manufacture of products with direct contact to humans should be discontinued for the time being. This applies in particular to children’s toys, food contact material (FCM)/packaging, indoor products and synthetic fibers.

Packaging should rather be collected unmixed in a controlled manner via extended deposit and return systems and sent for high-quality material recycling (closed loop, same product types such as PET bottles to PET bottles, PET trays to PET trays).

In the medium term, the existing separate collection of lightweight packaging could be converted into a dry collection of recyclable materials, for example to include plastics that were previously not recyclable or difficult to recycle (e.g. technical plastic products) and make them available for chemical recycling.

Below you will find a link to order the conference proceedings and to download the presentation at the conference in German and English.

December 31, 2023

In December 2023, the book “Antriebswende”, edited by Baden-Württemberg’s Minister for Transport Winfried Hermann, was published by the Molino-Verlag (only in German). Our expert for innovative fuels, Uwe Lahl, contributed the chapter on “Chemical energies”.

Unfortunately, a mistake has crept into the text on page 71. “Conclusion on efficiency” should start with:

Die Flächeneffizienz ist ein “pro” für das ICE. Hingegen ist die Antriebseffizienz das zentrale »pro«, was für das BEV spricht.
(The space efficiency is a “pro” for the ICE. Propulsion efficiency, on the other hand, is the key “pro” in favor of the BEV.)

Abbreviations:
ICE = Internal Combustion Engine
BEV = Battery Electric Vehicle