Innovation Forum for Plastics

Report from the 2024 Plastics Innovation Forum on April 19 in Brussels

The 2024 Plastics Innovation Forum, aimed at promoting plastic recycling and circularity, was an important meeting where all EU-funded projects in the field of plastics and circularity were presented. On behalf of CPNL, Mark Demuynck was one of the participants. The forum was led by leading figures such as Sophie Sicard, president of the EPRB (Plastic Recycling Branch of EuRIC), and Evdokia Achilles, EU head at the REA European Research Agency for the Circular and Bio-based Economy, together with her colleague Keti Medarova, who is responsible for tracking all EU-funded projects in the field of circularity.

The introductions were followed by an informative session highlighting the organization of calls for project proposals. These calls are highly competitive, averaging about 100 applications per call, and result in grants averaging €5.0 million, with outliers of up to €9 million. Reporting of project progress is done regularly in a set format, and a webinar is held by some of the consortia after each completed work process.

Several Horizon 2020-funded grant projects were then presented, including Circular Flooring, Circular Foodpack, CIMPA, Solrec2, Merlin, Stopp, VISS, Rebiolution and Primus. These projects range from addressing food contact issues to developing strategies for circular packaging and synthesizing bio-based polymers for various applications.

The forum was attended by representatives of the European Commission, including Wolfgang Trunk, responsible for PPRW, Silvia Maltagliati, policy officer for Circular Economy and Bio-based Systems, and Olga Pozlevic. These committee members collected political messages from speakers and led panel and workshop discussions with the project proposers.

All in all, the 2024 Plastics Innovation Forum provided insight into the latest developments and initiatives in plastic recycling and circularity, and provided a platform for discussion and collaboration among key stakeholders from industry, research and policy.

To learn more about upcoming events the CPNL is attending check out the CPNL calendar: https://circularplasticsnl.org/agenda/ or sign up for the newsletter.