A two-day consortium meeting was hosted by AINIA in Valencia earlier this month. The policy workshop was the highlight of the first day. An interactive exercise made the work package leaders think out of the box and work collaboratively towards REFUCOAT policy recommendations. How can REFUCOAT research contribute to the future of sustainable plastics? Which policy gaps need to be tackled to allow that future?

The 3 most exciting ideas were:

  • Introducing a mandatory assessment process for the whole innovation value chain including LCA, traceability, waste management, energy, water consumption and more
  • Promoting and increasing the capacity of biomass technology to protect the environment throughout Europe
  • Standardising the recycling process all over Europe from the collection and sorting to the evaluation of qualitative material

EUFIC will now analyse the outcomes of the workshop to produce the full REFUCOAT policy brief. The release is scheduled for spring 2020 in time for the final conference.