On September 30th, 2026, the PROSPER consortium and its Advisory Board members met online with the PRO organisations, members of EXPRA, the international alliance of industry-owned, not-for-profit packaging Producer Responsibility Organisations (PROs).
PROSPER presentations were accompanied by presentations from similar projects MoeBIOS and ReBioCycle, all financed by the CBE JU and all aiming to discover new routes for the recycling of bio-based and biodegradable plastics, where organic recycling is unavailable.
There was a very good attendance for such a specific topic – 32 invitation-only participants from all over the EU.
What was the aim of this 90-minute webinar
There were several, including presenting state-of-the-art research, but above all to engage the national PROs in a conversation about how to regulate the fees applied to bioplastics in the future and to discuss the practical implications of emerging research for packaging extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems, including collection, sorting, recycling and the possible role of fee modulation. The research from the three projects shows that bioplastics do not interfere with plastic sorting and recycling and can be separated with the right sorting technology. Further, we saw that bioplastics (in this case PLA) can effectively be mechanically recycled at least three times with the right processes. Also, the ReBioCycle project (presentation by AIMPLAS, with results from AIMPLAS, TotalEnergies Corbion and TORWASH) showed that recycled PLA has chemical and mechanical properties comparable to virgin material (see the press release).
The presentation from Ghent University illustrated that PLA is not expected to be a problematic issue for the recycling of other recyclables when appropriate sorting techniques are applied, which is already the case in many material recovery facilities. However, with bioplastic volumes on the EU market currently very small, the cost-benefit analysis indicates that a sufficient volume of PLA is needed to justify the economic sense of dedicated sorting and recycling. To break this low-volume, low-recycling lock-in, a coordinated combination of technological, economic and regulatory strategies is needed.
Why is this timing important?
As Roberto Ferrigno, Co-Founder of the European Bioeconomy Bureau (EBB), illustrated in his presentation, the review of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) and the Single-Use Plastics Directive (SUP), , the implementation of the Bioeconomy Strategy through a BIOTECH II Act and Circular Economy Act, raise the bar for bioplastics, making them a strategic element in the future EU chemical industry, but also in terms of climate actions and waste reduction policies.
The feedback from the PROs was interesting and mixed. On the one hand, CONAI explained the Italian situation where a dedicated PRO called Biorepack collects fees from producers and uses them to stimulate household collection of compostable bioplastics with food waste for treatment through the organic waste system. Recovery rates currently run at 52.5% of volumes POM, and in this specific market, where compostable packaging is collected together with biowaste and sent to organic recycling, mechanical and chemical recycling of compostable bioplastics is currently not considered necessary. The Portuguese PRO Ponto Verde stated that bioplastics are too few to collect separately and are therefore considered as plastic, paying a non-recyclable fee, and citizens are advised to put bioplastics in a bag for disposal, not recycling. The interesting intervention from the Netherlands Verpact from Erik Haverkort showed quite progressive thinking: from 2027, biobased packaging materials that meet certain criteria could apply a 50% discount on their EPR fees, in recognition of their contribution to reducing fossil feedstocks. More detail can be found here (in Dutch). This thinking promotes innovation and allows new materials, with strict environmental credentials, to enter the marketplace.
The webinar ended with a promise to meet again in 2027 to update the PROs on progress towards recovering bioplastics as we face a 2028 review of the PPWR in which, as we know, bioplastics were mandated in very few applications, creating notable market restrictions.
Note from the authors: many thanks to Valeria Branca of EXPRA, Anastasiya Bondar of EBB for the excellent organisation, to Chiara Bearzotti of European Bioplastics for her valuable support and to the speakers who contributed to the debate.
The full programme of the meeting is below.
15:00–15:05 – Welcome and introduction
Valeria Branca, EXPRA
15:05–15:12 – European policy context
Roberto Ferrigno, European Bioeconomy Bureau
15:12–15:22 – Sorting of bioplastics
Serhat Arca, NTCP
15:22–15:30 – MoeBIOS project
Quality of recycled materials and prototypes made from recycled plastic.
Miriam Lorenzo Navarro, ITENE
15:30–15:38 – ReBioCycle project
ReBioCycle project: A new European blueprint for circular bioplastics upcycling solutions.
Rafael Jiménez Aguilar, Ph.D. Biotechnology Group at AIMPLAS
15:38–15:46 – Mechanical recycling
Ingeborg Smeding, Project Manager Recycling, Wageningen University & Research
15:46–15:54 – Cost-benefit analysis
The costs and conditions required to support viable sorting and recycling solutions.
Wang Li, Ghent University
15:54–16:10 – Perspectives from PROs
A moderated discussion with selected EXPRA members on the practical implications for collection, sorting and recycling systems, as well as the financing of these solutions and the possible role of EPR fees and fee modulation in supporting innovation.
16:10–16:25 – Audience questions and moderated discussion
16:25–16:30 – Conclusions and next steps
The project is supported by the Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking and its members under grant agreement Nº 101157907. Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CBE JU. Neither the European Union nor the CBE JU can be held responsible for them.
