Plastics Recycling Show Europe announces conference program

The fourth edition of the Plastics Recycling Show Europe (PRSE) will examine the latest trends in the plastics recycling sector March 25-26 in Amsterdam. The program for the free two-day conference, featuring prominent speakers from across Europe’s plastics recycling sector, has recently been announced.

The conference will provide a holistic view of the whole plastic recycling value chain, drawing together political leaders, major brands, recyclers and the plastics recycling and manufacturing industry, according to a PRSE news release. Key speakers include:

• Mattia Pellegrini, head of for waste management and secondary materials at the European Commission
• Immo Sander, head of packaging development at Werner & Mertz
• Karl Edsjö, director environmental and European affairs at Electrolux
• Sylvie Thomas, head of EMEA sustainability policies at Lexmark
• Roberta Bernasconi, senior manager EMEA sustainability at Whirlpool

Pellegrini will deliver the opening keynote March 25 in the session titled The New Reality for Plastics. This session will look at the current state of the affairs and new developments of the plastics-related EU legislation against the background of the European Green Deal, the Circular Economy Action Plan and the new term of both the European Commission and the European Parliament.

The following sessions will explore the challenges, issues and opportunities within the sector for mechanical recycling, with sessions covering polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and technical plastics. Each session will be overseen by the relevant working group chairman from Plastics Recyclers Europe. Bernasconi from Whirlpool, Edsjö of Electrolux and Thomas of Lexmark and Luc Lavergne of Lavergne Group will speak in the technical plastics session that concludes day one.

The second day’s opening conference session is titled Global Solutions and Regional Actions on Plastic Waste. This session will examine existing and developing worldwide solutions to the transboundary problems of marine litter. It will also highlight the success of some of the latest local initiatives combatting unwanted plastic scrap in the environment. Featured speakers include Daniel Merillet of The One Project, Hans Axel Kristensen, CEO of Plastix A/S and Dorothea Wiplinger, sustainability manager at Borealis AG.

Day two continues with sessions that will examine the current status of polyolefin waste streams, including high and low-density polyethylene (HDPE and LDPE). Speakers in the sessions include Sander of Werner & Mertz, Andreas Malmberg of Trioplast and Ing. Gilian Gerke, resource management at University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal. The conference concludes with a final session looking at polypropylene (PP) recycling, a new addition to the 2020 program.