中文At the Global Conference on Plastics Recycling and Sustainability (GCPRS) 2026 in New Delhi, Beril Baykal Yesilırmak, technical director at Vanden Recycling, delivered a message that the plastics recycling industry cannot afford to ignore: the next crisis will not be about price volatility or operational efficiency. It will be about feedstock — who can secure it, who can process it, and who can deliver consistent quality from increasingly variable input materials.
Beyond Today’s Problems
Yesilırmak, drawing on more than 15 years of experience across plastics recycling and raw material sourcing, argued that while the industry remains occupied with issues such as price volatility, inconsistent quality, and securing clean feedstock, these concerns will soon be overtaken by a new set of challenges driven by regulatory mandates and sector-specific demand.
We are all experts at solving today’s problems, she remarked. But tomorrow’s problems will not look like today’s. The businesses that ask the right questions now will be the ones that succeed. She encouraged recyclers to critically assess their future readiness by asking where their feedstock would come from in the coming years, whether their existing suppliers could support that transition, and whether their current processing capabilities would be adequate for the changing quality and variety of recycled materials.
Compliance-Driven vs. Application-Driven Demand
According to Yesilırmak, the recycled plastics market is increasingly being shaped by two powerful forces: compliance-driven demand and application-driven demand. Regulatory measures such as recycled content mandates, Extended Producer Responsibility frameworks, and tighter import-export controls are restricting the movement of recycled plastics across regions. At the same time, sectors including packaging and automotive are driving demand for higher-quality recycled content that increasingly performs independently of virgin polymer pricing.
The next phase will not be won on price, she said. It will be won by those who can secure long-term supply while consistently delivering quality. As governments across Europe, the UK, the US, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, and South Korea continue strengthening recycling regulations, competition for quality feedstock is expected to intensify. Materials that many manufacturers have relied upon for years may become increasingly difficult to access as more industries compete for the same recycled resources.
The 30-to-40 Supplier Problem
To illustrate the shift, Yesilırmak cited fiber manufacturers that have traditionally depended on a limited number of stable feedstock sources. With packaging and other regulated sectors now competing for similar material streams, recyclers will need to broaden their acceptance criteria and learn to process a much wider range of feedstock qualities.
Instead of relying on one or two grades, you may soon be sourcing from 30 or 40 different suppliers, each offering different contamination levels and quality, she explained. If you can handle that variety while producing a consistent output, you will be ahead of the market. This is a fundamental operational change. Most recycling operations today are optimized for a narrow range of input specifications. Adapting to handle wide variation while maintaining output consistency requires investment in sorting, washing, and compounding technologies that many recyclers have not yet prioritized.
Building Capability at Every Stage
Yesilırmak outlined a comprehensive investment roadmap. Improvements should begin with more sophisticated sourcing strategies supported by digital technologies and AI for identifying and managing feedstock streams. Enhanced sorting systems — including magnetic separation, eddy current separation, optical sorting, color sorting, and density separation — can significantly improve material consistency before washing and reprocessing.
Effective washing systems incorporating caustic washing, friction washing, and contaminant removal help eliminate adhesives, labels, and other impurities. Dedusting and fine particle removal improve flake quality. Reject streams should not simply be discarded but upgraded and directed towards suitable secondary applications. The principle is simple: the more capability you build at each stage, the greater your tolerance for feedstock variation. The more variation you can handle, the stronger your business becomes.
Premium Markets Through Polymer Modification
Yesilırmak also highlighted the growing role of polymer modification and compounding. For recycled PET, additives can improve color, enhance intrinsic viscosity, and support bottle-to-bottle recycling, while solid-state polymerization technologies can reduce energy consumption and processing time. For recycled HDPE, specialized additives can improve environmental stress crack resistance, stabilize melt flow index, and maintain consistent color for demanding applications. These technologies enable recyclers to meet increasingly stringent OEM requirements while accessing premium markets.
Summing up, Yesilırmak stressed that future industry leaders will not necessarily be the largest or the lowest-cost operators. The winners will be those who adapt the fastest. Strategic sourcing, processing capability, and supply chain design will determine who captures the next wave of market growth.
Source: The Packman — “Solving feedstock challenges in the plastics recycling industry”
