Five years after the world community adopted Agenda 2030 and its associated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), progress is lacking. Essential health services are out of reach for at least 50% of the world’s population. 2.4 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation. Some 840 million people remain without access to electricity. Nearly 700 million people do not have access to safe drinking water.

These are clear signs that achieving the SDGs with business-as-usual is just not possible, and that we urgently need to deploy integrated technological solutions at scale. To accelerate that process, it is imperative that companies, social and economic actors and policy makers join forces. With G-STIC, the Global Sustainable Technological and Innovation Community, we inspire them to work together, think outside the box and create win-win solutions that are good for the economy, for the environment and for the people. 

Special session: The role and contribution of plastics recycling in a circular economy
13 February 2023, 16:30 – 17:45 BRT (Rio de Janeiro) | Online and in room Lapsa, Rio de Janeiro

ISWA Speakers: Carlos Silva Filho, ISWA President & Dirk Nelen, Senior researcher sustainable materials management VITO & vice chair ISWA Working Group Recycling and Waste Minimisation.

China was once the world’s biggest importer of plastic waste for reprocessing. That was up until the end of 2017, when the Chinese government decided to ban the import of plastic waste. This decision had a major impact on worldwide plastic waste management and forced governments, especially those in Europe and the United States, to rethink their approaches.

Europe has led the way on this, with the EU providing the funding, together with private enterprises, to foster the development and implementation of innovative collection, sorting and recycling technologies. Subsequently, the EU has rapidly increased its recycling capacity over the last five years. This is an important step in the development of a circular economy, which requires the input of recycled materials that are of good enough quality to be fully substituted for primary, fossil resources.

Efficiently producing high-grade, economically viable, industrial feedstock from plastic waste is challenging. It relies on customized, performant technologies in all steps of the production process, including waste collection, sorting, recycling, storage, dismantling, and transportation. Unlike the virgin plastic production system, the worldwide plastic waste recycling system is composed of poorly connected, geographically dispersed processing facilities. Therefore, the production from waste plastics of a significant supply of secondary raw materials of use in a circular economy will only become a reality through stakeholder collaboration on a global scale.