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The Horizon Results Booster (HRB) is a new initiative backed by the European Commission, aiming to maximise the impact of research projects funded by FP7, Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe. It helps to bring a continual stream of innovation to the market and beyond. It will further help to speed up the journey towards creating a sustainable impact for society and providing support to remove bottlenecks.

With four different EU-funded projects under H2020, Circular Flooring is part of a HRB project group on recycling and eco-innovation to enable the transition towards a green economy and society. It is led by NONTOX, a project on increasing recycling rates of plastic waste containing hazardous substances from Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), End of Life Vehicles and Construction and Demolition Waste. The three other members of the group are: CREAToR, which works on removing hazardous, already banned bromine-containing flame-retardants from waste streams using continuous purification technologies; PLAST2bCLEANED, a project on developing a human and environmentally safe recycling process for WEEE plastics in a technically feasible and economically viable manner; and REACT, which aims to recycle waste acrylic textiles and to ensure safe utilisation and disposal of removed substances.

The working group’s general aspiration is to contribute to implementing a global circular economy and achieve the emission reduction targets with the results of each member project. Therefore, the projects joined forces to promote their findings with the help of the Horizon Results Booster so that these can be taken up by policy-makers, researchers and the public for further action and information. Hence, with the support of the HRB, the group developed a flyer and a brief explanatory video to set a thematic frame and highlight the challenges to be addressed, that are of social, scientific and industrial nature. The group and HRB further organised a webinar on ‘Recycling of plastics – towards a more sustainable plastic treatment in 2030’  that 124 participants attended.

To streamline the needs of the projects for further uptake of their results, a policy recommendation report has been prepared with support of the HRB. It gives six recommendations to facilitate the work of the projects and plastics recycling. This report is an opportunity to show how these five projects are contributing to EC policy priorities of inter alia the Green Deal, in terms of reducing the environmental footprint of plastics and other waste products, thereby increasing the use of more sustainable materials.