QualiCycle – Initiative for high-quality plastic recycling in Switzerland

Around 790,000 tons of plastic waste are produced in Switzerland every year - but only a fraction of this is recycled. Although plastics offer many advantages for our everyday lives, their current use and disposal cause major environmental pollution and an enormous consumption of resources.

The pressure to develop circular solutions is growing, particularly in the area of food packaging. The EU is increasingly demanding the use of recyclates. At the same time, regulatory requirements, technological limitations and a lack of infrastructure are making implementation more difficult. This shows that no one can tackle the challenge of closing the plastics loop alone. The complexity along the value chain and the economic risks and legal hurdles require close cooperation and dialog between all parties involved.

A cross-polymer platform with a strong foundation

This is where QualiCycle - Initiative for High-Quality Plastics Recycling Switzerland comes in. The initiative offers an open, cross-polymer platform for targeted exchange, joint learning and the development of sustainable solutions - with a special focus on food applications.

The initiative builds on several successful projects in which we have brought together stakeholders along the value chain in recent years - for example on polystyrene (PS) (e.g. cycleworks - closing the loop PS Switzerland) and polypropylene (PP) (e.g. FCMrPP). This knowledge is now being pooled, networked and further developed in order to drive forward the closing of the loop more efficiently and effectively.

The overarching aim of the initiative is to create the conditions in Switzerland to make high-quality recycling of contact-sensitive plastics back into such applications both technically feasible and legally permissible.

Structure of the initiative

QualiCycle creates space for dialog, knowledge exchange and the joint development of practical solutions - from collection and sorting to regulatory issues. The initiative comprises two core elements:

• Content-related work
  We delve deeper into the topic of high-quality plastics recycling and jointly develop basic principles, guidelines and assistance on topics such as regulations, quality assurance, collection and sorting
   
• Promoting dialog
  The exchange between stakeholders plays a central role. This takes place as part of the cycleworks - High Quality Plastics Recycling Switzerland integrated into QualiCycle. Three cycleworks are planned per year. These are public events with clear compliance rules: No commercial topics will be discussed and no market player will be excluded from a future solution. In this way, we are creating a broad basis for jointly driving forward the plastics recycling economy in Switzerland.

Key Topics

Within the initiative, we work on strategically important issues for a functioning plastics cycle. The main topics include

• Technological developments and best practices for high-quality plastics recycling
• Value chain-spanning issues, such as quality assurance and purity requirements
• Regulatory Framework
• Infrastructure Development in Switzerland

Thinking ahead together

QualiCycle is aimed at companies, organizations and institutions along the entire plastics value chain - regardless of the type of polymer. This is because many challenges are not material-specific, but affect the entire industry. Through cooperation, knowledge transfer and the development of common foundations, we are creating the basis for a circular plastics economy in Switzerland.

Would you like to play an active role?

Then we look forward to you contacting us and to shaping the next stage of high-quality plastics recycling in Switzerland together with you.

Current dates