European Plastics Converters (EuPC) is the professional representative body of plastics converters in Europe, whose activity embraces all sectors of the plastics converting industry, including recycling, with a representation of more than 50,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Plastic converters use plastic raw materials and recycled polymers to manufacture new products. Within the MERLIN Project, EuPC brings support to the communications activities managed by ENCO in the Work Package 7. Among other tasks, EuPC participated in the drafting and development of the project’s communication strategy, but is also regularly supporting the communication and dissemination activities by, for instance, drafting articles on MERLIN project activities such as the educational poll, promoting events and providing diverse visuals. EuPC had also the opportunity to present the MERLIN project at several events such as the Summer School & Training Session in the framework of “Repair3D” project. Thanks to its expertise in regulatory affairs but also to its network, EuPC is also involved in Work Package 5 on the Assessment of the environmental, economic, social, legislative and regulatory barriers of the developed processes. As one of the milestones, EuPC tabled interactions with three standardisation bodies. To that purpose, EuPC held two separate meetings in a partnership with the Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP) via the Packaging Club Meeting. The purpose of these interactions was to introduce the project, have a dialogue about the processes developed in the course of the project and the potential barriers to their development and upscale. The Danish
Standardisation body (Danish Standards), the Spanish UNE – Asociación Española de Normalización, and the Belgian Packaging Institute (IBE-BVI) provided valuable insights on the topic of standardisation in the field of plastic packaging, which allowed the partners of the project to identify the obstacles that need to be tackled in the wide framework of the regulatory compliance.
Within the same work package, EuPC is leading Task 5.5 (Standardization, Policy & Regulatory framework). EuPC is currently in the process of finalising the first preliminary deliverable, through the collection of inputs from Particula, in the capacity of Work Package leader. These deliverables focus on legal & regulatory research and legislative analysis of the current regulatory landscape in the field of packaging and takes into consideration the implications that might arise from the ongoing revision process of some pivotal pieces of legislation in the field, such as the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation. The expected outcome of the final report is the identification of the barriers to tackle in order to aim at an ultimate achievement of the EU circular targets, as well as the development of policy recommendations for the increase of the quality and rate of multilayer packaging recycling waste.