Circular economy: ‘key driver of growth and innovation for the plastics in-dustry’

Competing in the European plastics market has recently become increasingly challenging. Expanded raw material prices, delivery difficulties and declining orders are determining the development of individual companies. Moreover, rising energy costs, restrained investment activity, and political framework conditions that fall short of expectations are increasing the pressure for transformation across the entire industry. At the same time, this situation opens up opportunities: how can the plastics sector chart a successful course out of the crisis and into a sustainable future?" Technological innovations, resource-saving processes and international networking are seen as the key to competitiveness in the current market environment. Digitalisation, automation and artificial intelligence are also driving the development of efficient and flexible solutions for the plastics industry. The goal is a sustainable, climate-neutral circular economy.

Modern recycling secures access to valuable materials, enables their energy- and cost-efficient processing, and paves the way for a more stable and sustainable market future. ‘The circular economy is becoming a key driver of growth and innovation for the plastics industry,’ says Kai Hoyer, Managing Director of Source One GmbH. "The opportunity lies in the holistic approach. Manufacturers as well as suppliers and waste management companies have the opportunity to position their company within a circular value chain in a robust and crisis-proof manner."

Best practice: kickoff and ramp-up in a challenging market situation

Source One is a holistic advisory firm for the circular economy that develops technological solutions and customizes material flows to create circular value chains. It links the relevant players, establishes global recycling structures and ensures that even hard to recycle plastics are utilised again. With the goal of bringing more and more recyclates into the resource-saving production of plastics, Source One supports companies in all aspects of plastics recycling and sustainability management. In the midst of a challenging market, Source One has succeeded in designing and realising an operational company for sorting and recycling tasks that is sustainable from the root up and set up for the future – its sister company, Source One Plastics GmbH.

Source One Plastics launched its sorting and recycling plant into regular three-shift operation in April 2024 with 14 employees and can look back on a successful first year of operation. It has achieved the planned annual throughput of 70,000 tonnes of mixed plastic waste that is difficult to recycle as planned. Today, forty people work for the Eicklingen-based company. The team is strongly committed to optimizing processes and ensuring the highest material quality. ‘Source One Plastics is not only increasing production volumes, but also constantly improving quality,’ says Source One Plastics plant manager Dr. Oliver Krahn. ‘To this end, we carried out more than 2,500 tests in our in-house laboratory within just the first year of operation.’

Sustainable engineering: energy and cost-efficient plant operation

Source One has integrated the approaches of its sustainable corporate vision into the Source One Plastics plant, shaping a holistic concept that is now seen as a model solution for the plastics industry: technological innovation driving resource-conserving value creation. The sorting and recycling plant is characterised by energy efficiency thanks to e.g. the dry-mechanical processing of the plastic waste. The system sorts post-consumer waste up to a size of a few millimetres using near-infrared technology. The subsequent cleaning of the different types of plastic is essentially carried out by friction. Further sorting divides the material stream into 2D (film) and 3D (rigit) fractions. The 2D polyolefins are agglomerated, recut and separated from residual metals. The 3D stream is refined once again. Source One Plastics also commissioned two sorting machines from Meyer Deutschland GmbH in July 2025 for the optical sorting of these rigid plastics. The flake sorters will separate 15,000 tonnes of processed post-consumer waste per year according to colour and polymer type.

The unique technology arrangement of the Source One Plastics plant saves up to thirty per cent of the energy required by conventional recycling technology – that is five to six million kilowatt hours per year. The renewable local energies that supply the plant also counteract rising energy prices and keep the CO₂ footprint comparatively low.

General growth drivers such as digitalisation and the use of artificial intelligence ensure the efficiency of the semi-automated processes in Eicklingen in very concrete terms – in the digitalised control of the plant and in the recognition and sorting of material compositions. However, the pioneering engineering only reflects one part of the robustly organised company. The decisive factor is the combination of modern engineering with the sourcing strategy.

Robust sourcing strategy: secure capacity utilisation, secure sales

‘Source One Plastics is firmly integrated into the value chain of the material cycle,’ says Kai Hoyer. ‘As a result, it is well equipped to deal with slight market fluctuations and now also stands for a secure workplace.’ The latter is a major competitive advantage – also in terms of attracting the necessary skilled labour.

With its sourcing strategy, the company has embedded itself both horizontally and vertically in the material flow through fixed supplying and purchasing partners in order to operate successfully on the market in the long term. This can be seen, among other things, in the shareholder structure. In addition to 23 Oaks Investments GmbH, LyondellBasell, a large petrochemical company from the Netherlands, is also involved as a joint venture partner. Following the European Green Deal of 2019, LyondellBasell has set itself the goal of using two million tonnes of recyclates in the production of its plastics by 2030. Accordingly, the majority of various material streams from the Source One Plastics plant for chemical and mechanical recycling are contractually secured. In addition, there are also long-term contracts and partnerships on the material procurement side, so that the plant is always sufficiently utilised.

In-house recycling: a profitable business model in the circular economy

The Source One Plastics plant was built to produce specified materials and supply them – at least in part – to the global recycling market in large volumes of exclusive material flows. It is therefore a preliminary stage of so-called ‘in-house recycling’. Source One designs customised sourcing solutions and sustainable engineering for companies with a high volume of plastic waste: ‘An in-house recycling plant is profitable from a capacity of ten thousand tonnes of plastic waste,’ says Kai Hoyer. ‘It is particularly suitable for companies that receive goods in individual packaging as well as for logistics and handling centres or waste disposal companies.’ The aim of in-house recycling is to reduce costs, secure access to materials, achieve sustainability goals and generate income through an additional source of income.

Legal requirements such as the EU Packaging Ordinance (PPWR) stipulate increasingly binding requirements for the recyclability of plastics and the use of recyclates. Every in-house recycling plant can supply the plastics industry and support it in terms of the circular economy with regard to the increasingly individualised demand for materials. In this way, capacities can be created to close the expected recyclate gap, which is expected to be around thirty per cent between supply and demand in Germany in 2030. This will make them part of the industry’s circular economy breeding ground: ‘Overall, the plastics industry still faces considerable challenges,’ says Kai Hoyer. "However, it is also showing signs of adaptation and recovery. We can see this in the fact that more consulting services are being requested again, as well as more engineering for individual plant construction projects. Demand for recyclates is also rising again slightly. That keeps me personally very optimistic."