Supporting a green and resilient Europe through POLymer RECycling

ended

The POLREC project is a collaborative project between 4 European Cluster and a Technological center. It focuses on sustainable development and recycling of high and low value polymer materials as (i) an alternative to the issue faced by lack of availability of raw materials on the European industrial markets and (ii) a contribution to the objectives of the Green Deal such as sustainable development and circular economy. With this focus, the POLREC clusters will support both the green and digital transition of SMEs from the Polymer industry, and their resilience. The world is today more and more inter dependent. The European Union is particularly dependent of the economy of foreign countries. More than 80% of its raw materials are brought by non-European economies. The COVID19 crisis has particularly illustrated that dependency in such a big number of sectors, and all has to be done to reduce it. There is a strong need to bring back European industrial sovereignty and strengthen the EU production capacity. A big number of reports have recently focused their analysis on that problem. In the POLREC project, various and numerous industrial sectors are concerned and targeted: transport and mobility, Construction, Renewable energy, Digital and Electronics, Health, Consumer, and Industrial & Food Packaging… Due to their high performance, polymers (thermoplastics, thermosets, elastomers and rubbers) are mostly and particularly used in these different sectors. In the current situation of search for energy efficiency, to face the problem of materials availability and with the objective of reducing European geostrategic and economic dependencies, the development of polymers must be highly sustainable, and they must be fully recycled. The consortium partners have come together to explore how an intensified cluster and business network collaboration across borders and across sectors can meet this challenge and exploit the international business opportunities related to the topic