Closing the Plastic (Packaging) Chain in the Netherlands
Closing the Plastic (Packaging) Chain in the Netherlands
The usage of plastic has increased significantly over the last fifty years; from all the plastic that is put on the Dutch market, 40% is being used as packaging material. Not all these plastic packaging items are reused and recycled.
The challenge
Collection and recycling of plastic packaging waste from households in the Netherlands increased since 2008. At the same time the costs for the plastic waste system increased and the quality of the collected plastics is low compared to the virgin plastics as a competitor. Closing the plastic packaging both resource wise as financially is not yet possible.
Closing the plastic packaging chain requires a systems approach and integration of information from various disciplines. Rebel was asked to take on the stakeholder management and coordination role in this interdisciplinary research in a complex political-administrative environment where interests of a diverse range of parties had to be balanced.
The approach
We used our knowledge of the sector and our network to combine interests of all the stakeholders involved. We moreover coordinated different sub research assignments, where interim results were tested via an independent expert commission and an advisory commission.
We finally executed a market scan for recycled plastic and developed a financial-economic model where several scenarios for interventions in the plastic packaging chain and their future effects were modelled.
Impact
Creation of a report that was used during the evaluation of the Framework Agreement for Packaging 2013- 2022 in the Netherlands.
