{"id":170781,"date":"2025-11-25T07:35:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T06:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=170781"},"modified":"2025-11-20T14:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T13:57:08","slug":"2024-data-reveals-a-deepening-crisis-of-the-european-plastics-recycling-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/2024-data-reveals-a-deepening-crisis-of-the-european-plastics-recycling-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"2024 Data Reveals a Deepening Crisis of the European plastics recycling industry \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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Europe\u2019s plastics recycling industry is entering its sharpest decline \u2014 with turnover down 5.5% \u2014 putting at risk Europe\u2019s circular economy, industrial resilience and thousands of local jobs. The latest annual report1<\/sup>\u00a0shows the largest capacity contraction ever recorded. Preliminary 2025 data reveal a 50% rise in recycling facility closures, resulting in the loss of nearly one million tonnes of European recycling capacity over just three years.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cNow is the time to stand united for the sector \u2014 not only to protect jobs and businesses at risk, but to safeguard Europe\u2019s environmental and technological progress, ensuring a sustainable future for all,\u201d stated Ton Emans, President of Plastics Recyclers Europe<\/strong>.\u00a0“We call on the EU institutions and national policymakers to act decisively and implement supportive measures to preserve the sector and Europe’s circular economy.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

With a total installed capacity of 13.5 million tonnes in 2024, plastics recycling in Europe remains well below the 6% annual growth required to achieve the PPWR targets. The sector is facing growing pressure from high production and energy costs, falling demand, and increasing volumes of low-priced, unregulated imports from outside the region. Polyolefin films and PET are most severely affected, each accounting for 25% of total closures in 2023-2024.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data highlights issues that threaten the long-term viability of plastics recycling within Europe. We urge EU institutions and Member States to take coordinated action immediately. Priority actions include establishing fair and enforced market regulations, implementing stronger controls on imports, cutting energy costs and harmonising reporting requirements via third-party certification across the region2<\/sup>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1\u00a0<\/sup>Plastics Recycling Industry Figures 2024<\/sub><\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2\u00a0<\/sup>More details on proposed actions can be found here:\u00a0Strategic Recommendations for a Resilient and Circular Plastic Value Chain in Europe<\/u><\/a><\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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About<\/strong> <\/strong><\/sup>Plastics Recyclers Europe<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE) is an organisation representing the voice of European plastics recyclers, who reprocess plastic waste into high-quality material destined for the production of new articles. Recyclers are important facilitators of the circularity of plastics and the transition towards the circular economy. The plastics recycling industry in Europe represents over \u20ac8.6 billion in turnover, 13.5 million tonnes of installed recycling capacity, around 850 recycling facilities, and around 30.000 employees.\u00a0www.plasticsrecyclers.eu<\/u><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Europe\u2019s plastics recycling industry is entering its sharpest decline \u2014 with turnover down 5.5% \u2014 putting at risk Europe\u2019s circular economy, industrial resilience and thousands of local jobs. The latest annual report1\u00a0shows the largest capacity contraction ever recorded. Preliminary 2025 data reveal a 50% rise in recycling facility closures, resulting in the loss of nearly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":170801,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"The sector is facing growing pressure from high production and energy costs, falling demand, and increasing volumes of low-priced, unregulated imports from outside the region","footnotes":""},"categories":[17143],"tags":[10416,14007,11966,14441,17523,10453],"supplier":[12787],"class_list":["post-170781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recycling","tag-circulareconomy","tag-pet","tag-plastics","tag-policy","tag-polyolefins","tag-recycling","supplier-plastics-recyclers-europe-pre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170781"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=170781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}