White Paper

Precision Recycling: Meeting Europe’s Challenges and Demands for High-Quality, Compliant Plastics

Looking at Europe’s current recycling landscape, the challenges facing recyclers, and how automated optical sorting and AI technology are essential in today’s modern recycling facilities.

European plastics recycling is changing fast. 

For decades, the industry thrived on a relatively simple model built around high volumes and conventional sorting processes. But today that model is under increasing pressure from stricter regulations, more complex post-consumer waste streams, and growing competition from low-cost virgin PET entering the market. 

As a result, recycling processors can no longer operate as a simple extension of waste management. The landscape has become too complex, and the margin for error too small. 

Instead, recyclers must rethink how they handle and process post-consumer plastics, focusing on precision, quality, material purity, and traceability to meet regulatory requirements and customer expectations — and compete against the ever-increasing influx of virgin PET. 

In this white paper, we explore: 

• The economic, regulatory and operational pressures reshaping European recycling 

• Why post-consumer plastics are becoming harder to process 

• How optical sorting and AI processing help solve these pressures 

• What recyclers can do to stay competitive in a rapidly changing market