Plastic recycling has proved that it can work. The bigger question now is whether it can work at the scale, quality and economics required by the plastics industry. For Manfred Hackl, CEO of EREMA Group, Austria, that is where the next phase of circularity lies. Speaking at the 13th Specialty Films & Flexible Packaging Global Summit in Mumbai, Hackl argued that recycling has moved well beyond its experimental phase. The industry now needs to industrialize it.
“40 years ago, what was recycling? Nobody wanted to hear the word recycling. Nobody could believe that recycling was possible,” he said. Bottle-to-bottle recycling, he noted, is now established technology, while recycled plastics are increasingly finding their way back into demanding applications.
The scale of the opportunity is significant. Global plastic consumption is around 400 million tonnes, while only a fraction is recycled. As recycled-content requirements increase, simply collecting more waste will not be enough. The industry will need to produce recycled material capable of replacing virgin material in applications where consistency and performance matter.
“We cannot downgrade. We have to use it in the same application as it was coming. That means we have to bring it to a higher quality,” Hackl said.
The progress already made in flexible packaging illustrates what is possible. Materials from complex packaging streams – including multilayer, metallized and printed structures – have gradually moved from lower-value applications towards film. Recycled content is also returning to bottle applications, while advances in processing are enabling higher recycled content in stretch films without compromising mechanical performance.
Hackl sees these developments as evidence that technology is no longer the only barrier. The larger challenge is coordinating the value chain.
“We have to collaborate, we have to work together as an industry—virgin supplier, converter, brands, recycler, all of us – to make it happen,” he said.
Europe, he suggested, offers an important lesson. While collection and sorting capacity has grown, there remains a gap between material collected and material actually recycled into usable products. Economic conditions, feedstock availability and changing regulations are adding further complexity.
His preferred model is straightforward: collect, recycle and reuse within the same region wherever possible. “Local for local would be the best stability,” Hackl said, pointing to the potential to reduce dependence on virgin material and create more predictable supply chains.
That requires a fundamental change in how recycled plastics are perceived. “Recyclers are raw material producers and we have to think in this way,” he said.
For Hackl, industrialization is central to that transition. Larger-scale recycling operations can deliver more consistent quality while improving economics through lower capital and operating costs.
EREMA, which has supplied more than 9,000 recycling plants globally, is positioning its technology around this evolution. India is an increasingly important part of that strategy, with more than 160 EREMA machines installed in the country and a strengthened local presence through its partnership with Lindner Washtech. Hackl also emphasized the importance of skills development, noting EREMA’s initiative with AMPEC to support training and build capabilities for the recycling industry.
His conclusion was clear – plastic is not going away. The business model around it has to change. “Plastic will continue to grow. No discussion about that. But it has also to be circularity. It cannot be a linear business model; it has to be a circular business model.”
For the recycling industry, that means the next milestone is not simply more recycling, but better recycling – at industrial scale, with predictable quality and economics.