POM Limburg collaborates in building recycling hub of the future
The Brightlands Chemelot Campus hosted the kick-off of the Horizon Europe project SYSCHEMIQ. Twenty partners from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy – including POM Limburg – are initiating the transition to a circular plastics economy.
Plastics have very versatile properties, such as strength, flexibility and low weight. Which explains the keen interest in the material. Today, we use 350 million tonnes of plastics, a number that will only continue to grow in the future. However, the use of plastics also presents major challenges such as plastic waste, the use of fossil resources and CO2 emissions. Europe aims to recycle 50% of all plastics by 2025. However, there is a long way to go before these goals are achieved.
SYSCHEMIQ
The kick-off of the SYSCHEMIQ project is an important step towards a circular economy and a reduction in CO2 emissions. On the one hand, the project focuses on collecting, sorting and recycling used plastics. On the other hand, the focus of the design process is on recycling in order to make plastic products easier to recycle and more recyclable in the future. The partnership consists of a mix of companies from the plastics industry, as well as knowledge institutions and governments from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy. The project’s goal? To develop a blueprint of the recycling hub of the future.
Plastics community
The SYSCHEMIQ project is closely aligned with POM Limburg’s objectives for a circular plastics sector. The POM team is therefore responsible for sharing and disseminating knowledge through workshops. It will closely involve the plastics community in this. Through that community, POM Limburg encourages cooperation between the various stakeholders, including plastic producers and processors, waste collectors and recycling companies.
