Understanding Business Requirements for Increasing the Uptake of Recycled Plastic: A Value Chain Perspective

Abstract

Circularity and recycling are gaining increased attention, yet the amount of recycled plastic applied in new products remains low. To accelerate its uptake by businesses, it will be useful to empirically investigate the barriers, enablers, needs and, ultimately, requirements to increase uptake of recycled plastic feedstock for the production of new plastic products. During the six focus group sessions we conducted, a value chain approach was used to map the factors that actors face regarding the implementation of recycled materials. The identified factors were structured based on three levels: determining whether a certain factor acted as a barrier or enabler, identifying the steps in the value chain that the factor directly affected and the category it could be subdivided into. The results were then further processed by translating the (rather abstract) needs of businesses into (specific) requirements from industry. This study presented eight business requirements that require actions from other actors in the value chain: design for recycling, optimised waste processing, standardisation, material knowledge, showing possibilities, information and education, cooperation, and regulation and government intervention. The main scientific contributions were the value chain perspective and the applied relevance of the findings. Future studies may delve deeper into the individual factors identified.