In financial year 2019, AIMPLAS presented more than 80 circular economy projects, taught 25 courses on the topic and sponsored 26 talks by its experts.
The circular economy is a concept fostered by the European Commission with the aim of ensuring that the value of products, materials and resources remains in the economy as long as possible to cut the generation of waste to a minimum.
AIMPLAS says it is eager to share its expertise as many companies in the plastics sector now view this new model as a real benefit to society and the environment, not to mention a great business opportunity.
The circular economy therefore played a key role in the technology centre’s activity in 2019, as demonstrated by the more than 80 R&D&I projects it worked on in this area and the fact that nine of them identified new lines of research.
Nearly a hundred business opportunities were identified in 2019 and of the projects now under way, a total of 13 successful demonstrators were obtained.
AIMPLAS also participated in a total of 28 events on the circular economy and its professionals gave 26 talks on the topic.
In 2019, twenty-five courses were taught for a total of 400 hours and were attended by 255 people from 180 participating companies. In addition, AIMPLAS held four workshops on the circular economy that were attended by more than 500 people.
In addition, the number of tests certified by ENAC for recycled plastics was increased and an AIMPLAS researcher was accredited by EuCertPlast as an expert auditor to conduct the audits required by recycling companies in order to obtain this certification.
AIMPLAS has collaborated with 51 associations, platforms, networks and clusters on the circular economy. These collaboration actions included initiatives such as the creation of the EsPlásticos platform, which aims to raise awareness about the sustainable solutions that plastics can provide to meet the challenges of society.
The centre also adhered to a number of circular economy platforms and initiatives, such as Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE), which recognized AIMPLAS as one of only two independent laboratories in Europe to carry out technological validation of the recyclability of PE films in accordance with PRE’s RecyClass evaluation protocol.
