European Composites Waste & Recycling Market Survey launches

European Composites Industry Association (EuCIA) is collaborating with its members UP/VE Resins and Epoxy Europe to promote the building of a composites recycling infrastructure in Europe.

The European Composites Waste & Recycling Market Survey aims to help quantify composite waste volumes as well as identify bottlenecks in the recycling process.

Composites play a big part in climate-neutral applications, like wind energy and transportation, leading to a growing number of composite components nearing their end-of-life.

EuCIA estimates that the total volume of thermoset composites waste in Europe is currently around 400KT/year - including both production and end-of-use waste – with 40-70% of this waste currently landfilled or incinerated without energy recovery. Exact figures are not available and the survey hopes to provide greater clarity on this.

Raphaël Pleynet, Managing Director of EuCIA, explains further, ‘This survey will help us to address the current lack of reliable data on end-of-use composites and waste management practices across Europe…We will also identify the key challenges to recycling in different countries’.

The survey is open to companies involved in composites manufacturing in Europe (part manufacturers, end-users, materials suppliers, recyclers) operating across all end-use markets and composites transformation processes, and results will be reported on an anonymous basis.

The deadline to reply is 31st October 2023. EuCIA will communicate the survey findings in early 2024.