Adaptation of the Extended Producer Responsible scheme within the Danish plastic industry: Circular Economy potentials for enhancing the re-cycling of plastic packaging wastes

This paper investigates how companies within the plastic value chain can comply with the requirements put forward by the European Union’s Extended Producer Responsibility scheme for plastic packaging wastes. Plastic packaging wastes for re-cycling are expected to increasewhen the scheme enters into force, just as national regulation that seek to avoid incineration of plastic will supports this development. To access the possibilities to ‘prevent’,
‘re-use’, ‘re-cycle’ plastic wastes, we make use of the waste hierarchyin combination with a circular economy approach, where re-use and re-cycle activities are proposed along the cascading chain to qualify the analysis further.We conclude that waste management practices adopted for the most part lead toa down-cycling of the plastics packaging wastes by ‘recovering’ activities. Hence, suggestions are proposed of how to moveforward applying ‘re-use’, ‘re-cycling’ and ‘prevention’strategies for plastic packaging wastes to sustain its quality and usability