GC3 Announces European Innovators Forum to Advance Safer, More Sustainable Chemicals
Industry leaders, regulators, and GC3 will collaborate to strategize chemical innovation under new EU plan.
LOWELL, Mass., May 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ The Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3) announced its first European Innovators Forum, to be held virtually from May 18 to 27, 2021, hosted by Kingfisher plc. The forum will focus on commercializing safer, more sustainable chemicals across a number of industrial sectors, in the context of the European Union s new Chemical Strategy for Sustainability. That strategy is a part of the larger European Green Deal to achieve a climate-neutral EU
by 2050 through a sustainable economy.
This article is part of our special report Plastic waste management.
Companies doing business in Europe may soon have to ensure their packaging contains a minimum amount of recycled plastic. But getting their hands on quality recycled materials in sufficient quantity is currently difficult.
When it comes to packaging, it seems like using secondary raw materials should be a no-brainer for companies. Rather than having to secure virgin raw materials, having access to the material you’ve already used in your packaging in order to make new packaging would be much easier.
That may be how it should work in theory, but today that’s not how it works in practice. Europe is not recycling enough plastic packaging to meet the demand for secondary raw materials. And that which is being recycled is often prohibitively expensive.