Addressing the Feedstock Challenge: How Interzero Is Tackling the Raw Material Shortage in Plastic Recycling

At the Future Packaging Day 2025 in Oberwaltersdorf, one topic stood out above all: how the recycling industry can secure sufficient quantities of high-quality material (feedstock) in the future to meet growing regulatory requirements. In his presentation, “Addressing the Feedstock Challenge,” Richard von Goetze of Interzero offered an impressive look at the changing market landscape and explained why new technological and strategic approaches are essential to enable a truly circular economy. 

Interzero is one of the most experienced companies in the European recycling and circular economy sector. With more than 30 years of industry expertise, around 2,000 employees in ten countries and over 80,000 customers, the company has a robust foundation from which to actively shape ongoing transformation processes. 

The vision is clearly defined: A world without waste. It is both an aspiration and a responsibility. But reality makes this path a challenging one. In Germany, for example, the volume of lightweight packaging waste (LWP) has declined significantly in recent years, and this trend is expected to continue. For the industry, that means less input, increased economic pressure, and simultaneously rising quality requirements for recyclates. 

Von Goetze presented projections showing that household packaging waste volumes could continue to fall through 2035. The reasons range from political measures such as the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) to changing consumer habits and packaging substitutions. 
Plastic packaging remains a central element of modern, safe, and functional packaging systems, and its recyclability continues to improve thanks to technological innovation. At the same time, the presentation clearly highlighted how strongly packaging quality influences recycling processes. More complex structures and multilayer materials still pose challenges for many sorting and recycling facilities, making industry-wide design-for-recycling initiatives increasingly important. 
A particular focus was placed on paper-based composites, where many new concepts are emerging. However, from a recycling perspective, many of these remain difficult to process due to their multi-material structure. Von Goetze emphasized one notable exception: Greiner Packaging’s K3^® r100, whose innovative design allows the cardboard wrap and plastic cup to separate automatically, serving as a best-practice example of recycling-friendly packaging innovation. 
Meanwhile, demand for recyclates is rising sharply. Due to the PPWR, the packaging industry will be required to use significantly higher shares of recycled content, driving demand for high-quality regranulates even further. Although experts expect mechanical recycling capacities to expand in the long term, the market remains volatile in the short term: low recyclate prices reduce recyclers’ profitability, slowing investments and hindering necessary transformation. Studies show that the EU’s recyclate gap will grow to more than one million tonnes by 2030. 

While mechanical recycling continues to serve as the cornerstone of the circular economy, Interzero sees chemical recycling as a crucial complementary component, particularly for material streams that are currently difficult or impossible to recover, such as complex, mixed plastic waste. 
The urgency becomes clear in one key figure from the presentation: of the German LWP waste stream, only around 50% can currently be mechanically recycled through mono-fraction sorting. A further 25% or so falls into what is known as Fraction 350, a mixed-plastic stream that is still almost entirely thermally treated today. This is precisely the stream intended to serve as feedstock for chemical recycling in the future. 
Together with OMV, Interzero is currently building a large-scale feedstock-preparation facility in Walldürn. The plant will prepare mixed plastic waste so that it can serve as a high-quality input for chemical recycling processes. Using state-of-the-art sorting technology and partly powered by renewable energy, the facility is slated to go into operation in 2026. Its goal is to convert today’s largely incinerated Fraction 350 into usable PET and PO fractions, increasing the share of LWP volumes that can be recycled and recovering more valuable materials before they are burned. 

A key takeaway from the presentation is that securing raw materials is a shared responsibility across the entire value chain. It requires action on multiple fronts: 

• Packaging design: Creating recyclable and mono-material products 
• Consumer education and participation: Encouraging proper separation and disposal of packaging 
• Technological support: Advancing sorting technologies and recycling infrastructure 
• Harmonized European regulatory framework: Aligning EU regulations, such as the PPWR, to enable cross-border circularity 

Today’s fragmented recycling landscape across Europe is expected to be aligned through the PPWR, enabling better conditions for cross-border circularity.