Im Auftrag der Europäischen Kommission hat das Europäische Komitee für Normung (CEN) über 1100 bestehende Normungsinitiativen auf nationaler, europäischer und internationaler Ebene aufgelistet und mit dem Ziel geprüft, Möglichkeiten aufzudecken, wie die europäische Kreislaufwirtschaft vorangetrieben werden kann. Der finale Bericht „Identification of Potential Needs of Standardisation for Sustainable Chemicals from Primary and Secondary Raw Materials Related to the Circular Economy Action Plan” liegt jetzt vor.Folgende Empfehlungen wurden für die Forschung herausgearbeitet:
Research on the extraction approaches to remove unwanted substances from recycled plastics, and on mechanical and chemical recycling to facilitate the circularity of plastics and materials
Research on (a) the detection and sorting systems (b) recycling approaches for functionalized / mixed or reinforced plastics (c) repairing and/or compatibilization of recyclates (d) extraction techniques to recover chemical substances in plastics
Research on promoting products that are designed to be easily refurbished, remanufactured, reused, recycled, biodegraded safely
Research into what extent product additives hamper recycling of materials
Sustainability criteria for other feedstock as has been done for biomass
In the absence of end-of-waste criteria, a standard for a minimum quality (hygienic, impurities, contaminants, physical and mechanical characteristics) of plastics for recycling and plastic granulates
Standardised methodology for calculating recycled content
Standard with criteria on properties of relevance for End-of-Waste such as the thresholds of contaminants
Standards on responsible design to enable the separation of recyclable components (e.g. multi-layer packaging)