Chemical Recycling Europe (CRE) held its annual conference ‘Chemical Recycling: An Industry for the European Circular Economy’ over two days in Brussels last week (13 and 14 October).
The event had close to 200 attendees and featured a series of presentations and debates. The first day saw CRE President, Carlos Monreal, give a speech on the background of the chemical recycling industry and CRE.
Later, during a policy session, the Director of Circular Economy and Directorate-General for the Environment at the European Commission, Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea spoke about the future of chemical recycling in the circular economy.
Other panellists and speakers include Paul Davidson, Director of Sustainable Plastic Packaging Challenge and Director at UK Research and Innovation; Annick Meerschman, Innovation Director from Cefic; and Paula Chin from WWF who spoke about its 10 principles on chemical recycling.
The conference focused on the views of all sides of the industry, such as polymer converters, mechanical recyclers, waste management, polymer producers and brand owners.
CRE was created in 2019 to represent the interests of the European chemical recycling industry and explore solutions within the industry.
The next annual conference is planned to once again be held in Brussels in 2023.
Monreal said: “The CRE Annual Conference was a perfect opportunity for CRE as an association to demonstrate our goals, our work on policy, and how we play a key part in the plastic waste and recycling landscape of the future.”
Davidson added: “The CRE conference provided an excellent opportunity to have an expert discussion on how Mass Balance accounting could be used to unlock the potential role for chemical recycling in helping to tackle the scourge of plastics pollution.”
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