Why Recyclable Packaging Is Not Enough

Questions in this interview

On 12 August 2026, Europe’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation begins to apply generally. Speaking to freelance journalist Markus Vögele the day before, Ocean Material founder Toni Kienberger explains why design for recycling alone cannot create a circular economy, and why collection, processing capacity and demand for recovered materials have to develop together.

Together with MeSentia AG and Inspire AG, he is developing a possible part of the solution: a process intended to turn suitable, difficult thermoplastic mixtures into robust structural products with less preparation.

Interview conducted on 11 August 2026. Edited English translation for Ocean Material Insights. The technology remains under development; industrial performance and commercial outcomes still require validation.

The earlier conversation: Read the 4 November 2025 interview about plastic recycling and Toni’s motivation for the background to this follow-up.

Europe is introducing design-for-recycling requirements, with recycling at scale becoming an additional criterion from 2035, subject to the regulation’s implementation timetable. Are we improving packaging without ensuring that it will actually be recycled?

Toni Kienberger: That is exactly the risk I see. The regulation recognises that design for recycling does not by itself guarantee actual recycling. We must improve packaging while also building collection, sorting, recycling capacity and markets for recovered material.

A rule does not collect material, build a plant or create a customer. If those things do not develop together, we could have better packaging in 2030 without a functioning material loop. The gap between recyclable and actually recycled has been with us for decades.

How large is that gap?

Toni: It is enormous. UNEP estimates that humanity generated around 400 million tonnes of plastic waste in 2024. The OECD’s comprehensive global material-flow assessment refers to a different year: in 2019, only nine per cent of plastic waste was ultimately recycled.

Those figures come from different years and sources, but they show the scale of the challenge and how little material remains in the loop.

Why does the circular economy so often fail to work?

Toni: We are trying to introduce circular solutions into a system that still rewards linear behaviour. The basic model is to extract a resource, make a product, sell it and replace it with a new one as quickly as possible.

High material throughput is often part of the business model. Businesses are rarely rewarded for using as little material as possible or keeping products in circulation for as long as possible. They are generally rewarded for selling more.

That does not mean growth is fundamentally wrong. The question is what we grow through: increasing resource consumption, or better products, services, reuse and more efficient material loops.

Plastics Recyclers Europe has reported the loss of nearly a million tonnes of annual European recycling capacity since 2023. How does that fit with increasingly ambitious circular economy targets?

Toni: It does not fit, and it reveals the basic problem. We set ambitious recycling targets while economic conditions can penalise the businesses expected to deliver them.

Virgin material is often cheaper than recycled material. A recycler must collect, sort, clean and process waste, use energy, manage rejects and guarantee reliable quality. At the same time, the recycler competes with standardised virgin material and inexpensive imports. The environmental costs of virgin material are only partly reflected in its price.

Without an obligation or an economic reason to use recycled material, businesses may choose the cheaper option. Recycling plants then close while targets rise. In the worst case, we spend years improving packaging recyclability while losing the plants needed to recycle it.

We need reliable demand for recycled materials and fair competitive conditions.

Is recycling being overestimated?

Toni: Recycling is indispensable. It becomes a problem when it reassures us that the linear system can continue unchanged: we produce and consume as before and promise to recycle everything later.

We also keep looking for one big solution. Recycling, bioplastics, chemical recycling, cleanups and new regulation can all play a role. But none can solve the problem alone. Plastics, applications, waste streams and regional conditions are too varied.

What turns a recycling project into a functioning material loop?

Toni: A complete economic chain. You need enough material, reliable collection, sufficiently consistent quality, industrial quantities and a customer who keeps buying the resulting product.

That customer is buying more than a sustainability story. The product must work on quality, price and availability. If one part of the chain is missing, a good idea can remain a pilot project.

A material becomes part of a loop when it is actually collected, processed and used again.

Better technology is sometimes presented as a way to keep almost any material in circulation. Where are the limits?

Toni: Physics still applies. Materials age through use, heat, UV exposure and repeated processing. Different polymers cannot be mixed arbitrarily. Moisture, dirt and other substances affect quality, while sorting and preparation need energy.

A perfect loop without losses is the exception. We need to distinguish more honestly between theoretical recyclability, technical feasibility and recycling that actually happens at industrial scale.

You have described cases where 60 to 70 per cent of mixed plastic streams cannot be recycled economically. Where does that number come from?

Toni: It is our practical experience from projects involving heterogeneous material streams, rather than a global statistic. A clean, single-material PET bottle is a different situation.

For contaminated films, multilayer packaging, textile mixtures or materials from regions with weak collection and sorting infrastructure, the economics often do not work. It might be technically possible to separate and clean them further, but that preparation can cost more than the recovered material is worth.

Depending on the stream, 60 to 70 per cent can be a realistic order of magnitude in those projects, sometimes more.

What distinguishes the technology you are developing with MeSentia and Inspire from existing recycling processes?

Toni: Conventional mechanical recycling generally aims to make a clean, homogeneous granulate from plastic waste. That works well for clean, single-material streams. For complex mixtures, preparation can quickly become expensive.

We want to turn suitable thermoplastic mixtures more directly into robust structural products, with significantly less preparation. In simplified terms, thermoplastic components form the matrix, while fibres already present in the stream can contribute to stability.

We do not necessarily separate every component. We try to use the existing composition in a useful way. The innovation lies in the interaction between material, process control, component geometry and tooling.

Can you put arbitrary plastic waste from a river or beach into the machine?

Toni: No. We are working towards tolerating greater variation and contamination than conventional processes, but the material must remain within defined limits and contain enough thermoplastic material.

Testing is still necessary. Some streams need preliminary sorting and preparation. The difference is that we aim to avoid cleaning and separating them to the almost single-material quality required by many established routes.

For clean, single-material plastics, conventional mechanical recycling generally remains the more appropriate route. Our approach starts where those processes reach technical or economic limits.

Many recycling technologies work in the laboratory but struggle in industrial operation. Why should yours be different?

Toni: Honestly, we will only know conclusively when the first industrial plant runs continuously. The basic process works, and we have made load-bearing panels and components from real material streams.

But industrial operation brings different requirements: stable cycle times, automated feeding, consistent quality, tool life, throughput and actual cost per product.

Then there is the market. A machine’s ability to make something is not enough; someone must keep buying the product. We are confident enough to take the next step, but we have not yet earned the success story.

Why choose a pallet as the first application?

Toni: Precisely because it is an ordinary industrial product. Almost every product sits on a pallet somewhere in its supply chain. The requirements are clear, volumes are large, and weight, durability and returnability have direct economic effects.

Our lightweight approach could be useful here. Wood is an excellent material, and we do not want to replace it indiscriminately. We are interested in applications and closed logistics loops where a lighter, robust pallet designed for repeated use makes economic sense.

The pallet is an industrial starting point, rather than the final goal.

Where would the feedstock come from?

Toni: Industrial waste and material collected near coasts and rivers that currently lacks a stable, high-value recovery route.

Industrial production needs more than occasional material from a cleanup. We need recurring volumes and defined quality. Many projects fail at that point: they have an attractive sample and attention, but no reliable supply chain.

That is why we consider material sourcing, preparation, production and sales together from the beginning.

In the earlier interview, you targeted mid-2026 for the first industrial plant. What is the position now?

Toni: We did not achieve that schedule. The basic process works, but we underestimated how much development the specific application still needed. For the pallet, the work involves geometry, load performance and tooling, as well as the material itself.

We have worked intensively on those areas in recent months. Building the first industrial plant is the next step. Several funding and financing discussions are under way.

Until those decisions are made, giving another fixed date would not be responsible. The plant must then demonstrate stable, continuous industrial operation.

What has to change if we do not want to be discussing the same problems in ten years?

Toni: I sometimes wonder what people will say about these years: that we understood the problem but thought a few cleanups, new labels and the word recyclable everywhere would be enough, as long as the system itself did not have to change.

We need consistent, intelligent changes: real demand for secondary materials, fair conditions compared with virgin material, products used for longer, and technologies for streams currently overlooked.

Our long-term ambition goes beyond pallets. Regions should be able to use their own difficult waste to make the products they need locally. Instead of exporting waste and importing finished products, they can create local resources, production and value.

We are part of the generation that can still decide whether the circular economy becomes a real economic model or remains a label.

About Toni Kienberger

Toni Kienberger is founder and CEO of Ocean Material. For more than 15 years, he has built businesses, developed products and worked on international supply chains between Europe and Asia. Today, his focus is industrial circular solutions for maritime and difficult plastic waste streams.

Markus Vögele is a freelance journalist and conducted this interview on 11 August 2026. Ocean Material prepared the edited English translation.

Continue exploring

• Read the November 2025 interview about plastic recycling and coastal waste.
• Explore Ocean Material’s recycling technology development and material portfolio.
• Discuss a material or development project with Ocean Material.

Background sources

• EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation 2025/40, particularly Articles 6 and 71. The application dates for specific recyclability requirements depend in part on subsequent legal acts.
• OECD Global Plastics Outlook, reporting global plastic waste and recycling flows for 2019.
• UNEP on plastic waste and informal waste pickers, reporting an estimated 400 million tonnes of plastic waste in 2024.
• Plastics Recyclers Europe on lost recycling capacity, including preliminary estimates for 2025.