Plastic pipe dataaround Europe

High interest from TEPPFA members for OCS implementation webinar

A series of online training webinars organised by TEPPFA has generated high interest from TEPPFA members in support of the EU’s recent measures to combat the unintentional release of plastic pellets during operational and logistics processes.

The webinars were arranged with the support of European Plastic Converters (EuPC) to provide a thorough insight into recent regulation proposals by the European Commission (EC). Those EC measures, adopted on 25 September 2023, were to restrict microplastics intentionally added to products under the EU chemical legislation REACH. On 16 October 2023 the EC proposed measures to prevent microplastic pollution from the unintentional release of plastic pellets. The regulation proposal aims to ensure all operators handling plastic pellets in the EU take the necessary precautionary measures.

Ahead of the EC decision, the plastic industry had already developed Operation Clean Sweep (OCS) as a voluntary programme aimed at awareness raising and best practice sharing to prevent pellet loss to the environment during logistic and operational activities.

The key topics of the webinars for OCS implementation were:

  • Legislative framework
  • Introduction and demo session of the bow-tie model, an EuPC and PlasticsEurope initiative to evaluate pellet losses during operation
  • Practical experience of using the bow-tie model

Almost 100 OCS experts from TEPPFA members joined the successful training sessions. The objective of the webinars was to provide thorough insight into the much-debated regulation proposal.

All operational sites of TEPPFA company members have signed up to OCS since 2021. TEPPFA members show their commitment to sustainability. They make every effort to reduce pellet loss to the environment to zero and to ensure alignment with their reporting obligations.

TEPPFA will offer members further training sessions in case of further updates of the OCS tool.

Posted on 12th December 2023


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