Cutting plastics pollution E-Book

European Investment Bank

• Herausgeber: European Investment Bank
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 102

Beschreibung

Plastics are essential materials that underpin the functioning of our modern economy. However, waste plastics are also an increasing threat to our natural environment. The authors of this report set out ten key root causes behind this growing threat and offer recommendations, based on interviews with experts across the plastics value chain, on how to solve this global problem.

Leseprobe

Cutting plastics pollution

Financial measures for a more circular value chain

About the European Investment Bank

The European Investment Bank Group is the EU bank and the world’s biggest multilateral lender. We finance sustainable investment in small and medium-sized enterprises, innovation, infrastructure, and climate and environment. We have financed Europe’s economic growth for six decades and are at the forefront of EU crisis response, leading the world in climate investment and backing development of the first COVID-19 vaccine. We are committed to triggering €1 trillion in investment in climate and environmental sustainability to combat climate change by the end of this decade. About 10% of all our investment is outside the European Union, where our EIB Global branch supports Europe’s neighbours and global development.

Table of contents

FOREWORD

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Financial Recommendations

Policy Recommendations

ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

GLOSSARY

CONTEXT

Plastics pollution — a complex and growing global issue

External costs

European policy on plastics

Role of the EIB

METHODOLOGY

Ecosystem mapping

Value chain mapping

Expert and stakeholder interviews

KEY FINDINGS

1. #NEED FOR MORE FUNDING AND CAPACITY

2. #INEFFICIENT VALUE CHAIN

3. #DOMINANT ACTORS IDENTIFIABLE ACROSS THE VALUE CHAIN

4. #UNFAVOURABLE ECONOMICS OF RECYCLATE

5. #TOO MANY PLASTIC TYPES, TOO SHORT A LIFESPAN

6. #BRAND OWNERS AND CONSUMERS ARE KEY DECISION-MAKERS

7. #CHALLENGING ECONOMICS OF SORTING AND RECYCLING

8. #INNOVATION EXISTS, BUT REMAINS TRICKY

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

Key issues

Key solutions

Financial recommendations

Policy recommendations

REFERENCES

Table of figures

Figure 1: European policy context

Figure 2: Methodology overview

Figure 3: Key root causes of inefficiencies in the plastics value chain

Figure 4: Key findings

Figure 5: Sorting output capacity gap

Figure 6: Recycling throughput capacity gap

Figure 7: Overview of stakeholders across the plastics value chain

Figure 8: Top ten producers in the world (Mt per year)

Figure 9: Applications of plastics

Figure 10: Total plastics production per region

Figure 11: Plastic waste generation per region

Figure 12: Dominance of packaging at end-of-life

Figure 13: Total managed plastic waste

Figure 14: Total unmanaged plastic waste

Figure 15: Plastic waste disposal in the EUR27+3 countries

Figure 16: Plastic waste treatment in the EU27+3 countries

Figure 17: Emerging innovative solutions

Figure 18: Key recommendations

Spotlights

Spotlight 1: Plastic waste export from Europe

Spotlight 2: End-of-life fate of plastic packaging

Spotlight 3: Oil and gas price dynamics in the context of plastics

Spotlight 4: EPR Systems

Spotlight 5: Microplastics

Spotlight 6: Quick reference guide — bioplastics

Case studies

Case study 1: Borealis

Case study 2: Carbios

Case study 3: Caribbean Sustainable Water Management and Clean Oceans Programme

FOREWORD

Over the past 70 years, plastics have become an indispensable part of our lives and are produced in ever greater types and quantities. Unfortunately, their very usefulness and their ubiquity hides a darker side. Many plastics are too often discarded in the natural environment, where they never degrade. By 2050, it is expected that 12.5 million metric tonnes of plastic waste will either lie in landfills or in the land or marine natural environment, as the enduring legacy of a linear business model and a continuous growth in demand, which have created a plastics pollution crisis.

The circular economy agenda addresses the problem of plastic waste pollution, especially for packaging. Beyond the significant ecological cost of land and marine plastic pollution, the growing volume and the technical specifications of plastics production are at odds with the need to limit the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint. Addressing this is critically important to the European Investment Bank in its role as the EU climate bank and through its commitment to the Paris Agreement.

The issue of plastic waste pollution is attracting global attention and action. Initiatives such as the Global Treaty on Plastics, announced by the UN Environment Programme in Kenya in February 2022, is the first attempt at a global solution to this global problem which requires collective action.

Over the past decade the European Union has played a leading role in fostering a more circular treatment of plastics, based on a mix of incentives and regulatory actions. However, further opportunities exist for pushing towards a more circular economy for plastics, through a smart combination of policy action and dedicated financial instruments.

This report by the European Investment Bank’s Innovation and Digital Finance Advisory Division examines the inefficiencies that lead to leakages across the plastics value chain — built up over many decades of exponential growth in both the types and volume of plastics produced — and the potential for directing investment towards solutions to the problem. The Bank is already financing innovative companies and public authorities in the European Union and beyond, and it is prepared to do more under the InvestEU and Global Europe programmes.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to our colleagues at the European Commission for funding this deeper exploration into the challenges of creating a truly circular economy in plastics to the benefit of the natural environment in Europe and across the globe.

Ambroise Fayolle, Vice-President, European Investment Bank

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Context

Plastics are an indispensable material in the modern economy, providing durable and cost-effective solutions across many sectors and economic activities. However, over the past 70 years plastics production has grown exponentially in terms of volume and the increased complexity of the underlying compounds. In the absence of a fully circular economy in plastics, the world faces the growing problem of increased plastics production, rapid consumption and discharge into the natural environment — both on land and at sea.

Policy Goals

At the European Union (EU) level, the European Strategy for Plastics has set a plastic packaging recycling target of 50% by 2025 with the aim of generating 10 million tonnes of recycled plastics in new products, across all Member States, by the same year.[1] Furthermore, all plastic packaging on the European market should be reusable or recyclable by 2030, with additional targets proposed by the draft revision of the EU legislation on Packaging and Packaging Waste in November 2022. At the global level, international commitments such as the Global Treaty on Plastics under the auspices of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) or the recent creation of the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty (led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF) are clear signs that the time has come to find a durable solution to the growing problem of plastic waste in our natural environment.

Objective

In this report, the European Investment Bank sets out to understand the value chain of plastics to identify investment opportunities and impactful measures that contribute to more efficient and environmentally friendly design, production, use, reuse and recycling of plastics, with the goal of identifying the most impactful opportunities that minimise plastic waste in the European Union and beyond, in line with the EIB’s ambitions as Europe’s climate bank.

Methodology

This study is based on in-depth desktop research of the functioning of the global plastics industry, a data-driven mapping of the plastics value chain, and 29 expert interviews including with plastics producers, brand owners, investors and lenders active across the value chain. If used, quotes from the interviewees are anonymised in the report. The emphasis of the report is on the European continent while recognising that the problem is a global one and particularly acute in other parts of the world.

Key Findings

The report finds that an estimated investment gap of €6.7-8.6 billion must be closed to achieve Europe’s recycled content targets by 2025. Achieving these targets requires substantial investment and a reliable end market for the recycled content. This investment would enable the European Union to add 4.2 million metric tonnes (Mt) of annual plastics sorting capacity and 3.8 Mt of annual recycling capacity by 2025 in pursuit of its 10 Mt annual target for recyclate (re)use across the continent.

Looking into the underlying causes of the plastic waste pollution problem, ten key root causes — or inefficiencies — across the circular value chain for plastics are identified. These result in the continuous leakage of all types and sizes of plastics into the environment. By volume and environmental impact, plastic packaging is the biggest contributor to the plastic waste problem. The plastics value chain has several other identifiable focal points, including geographically (the Asia Pacific region being the largest plastics and plastic waste producer) or industrially (such as identifiable global leaders in the plastics business holding dominant market shares).

The economics of a circular, sustainable plastics economy remain challenging compared to the linear status-quo — in terms of the profitability of sorting and recycling as well as the market for recyclate itself. Oil and gas price dynamics, also in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, are likely to cause spillover effects on plastics producers, although no major shift in the economics of virgin plastics has been observed yet. The lack of homogeneity in plastics, reinforced by brand owners’ preference for a variety of shapes, sizes and colours, adds to the challenges of recycling and sorting.

Innovative solutions to the problem of plastic pollution do exist, but they come with their own challenges in terms of impact (such as energy consumption/CO2 emissions) or implementation (for example, the need for value chain collaboration for packaging tracking). The solution lies in reinforcing circularity by strengthening the links in the plastics value chain. This is only achievable through a powerful combination of regulatory policy innovations (technical standards, minimum recycling rates/content, etc.) and increased capacity and innovation in the collection, sorting and recycling sectors. Such an enabling framework can be created with the support of multilateral financial institutions, for example by providing dedicated financing schemes, in tandem with public-private cooperation for the wider implementation of the circular economy.

In the global context, Europe is performing comparatively well in addressing plastic waste pollution. However, no region can act quickly enough to address the growing amount of single-use plastics in circulation and alleviate the pressure of increasing plastics production and demand. The report concludes that the problem varies across the European continent and that there is thus an important geographical dimension to the solutions.

Key Recommendations

Financial Recommendations

The report concludes with four key financial recommendations that the EIB could implement in order to address the problem of plastic waste pollution both within and outside the European Union:

1.Plastic production. Large investment programme loans for plastic producers and brand owners in the private sector. These investment programme loans could be made available to corporate and mid-cap companies involved in the production and conversion of plastics with the explicit objective of improving the circularity and sustainability of these materials. EIB financing could then be channelled towards the most promising and innovative solutions developed by the leading plastics producers.

2.Plastic sorting and recycling. Framework loans for public sector municipalities or local authorities specifically targeted at scaling up plastic sorting and recycling capacity in the European Union in order to achieve its objective of having 10 Mt per year of recyclates used in plastic products on the European market by 2025.

1. The findings of the report indicate gaps in sorting and recycling capacity in more developed EU Member States. However, the largest gaps in sorting and recycling are identified in EU cohesion regions, centred on Central and Eastern Europe and South-East Europe.

3.Innovation in sorting and recycling technology developed by European SMEs. It is vital to continue supporting research, development and innovation (RDI) activities by European companies focused on proving new concepts aimed at more circularity in plastics and assisting the adoption of these emerging technologies at scale. Prioritising investments in these technologies could build on the successful model of the Energy Demonstration Project (EDP) facility that continues under the thematic windows of the InvestEU Fund programme (2021-2027). The European Innovation Council Fund could also provide early-stage support to these companies. While this does not provide a “silver bullet” solution to the problem, technical innovation does provide a pathway out of the linear production and consumption model for plastics.

4.Outside the European Union through EIB Global — Sovereign loans for integrated waste management projects. EIB sovereign loans to public sector entities, especially those authorities responsible for wastewater collection and treatment, targeting coastal cities (often with substantial ports or harbours) in developing countries.

1.