Plastic recycling in the piping industry: Interview with Zoran Davidovski

Scaling up plastics recycling is integral to Europe’s transition toward a circular economy and reaching the bloc’s sustainable development goals. While the European Union has become a global leader in plastic waste collection, current recycling rates remain insufficient, with a significant share of collected material still incinerated or sent to landfills.

We spoke with Zoran Davidovski, Head of Sustainability at Pipelife and Chair of the Sustainability Group at the European Plastic Pipes and Fittings Association (TEPPFA). Drawing on nearly three decades of industry experience, Zoran shared his insights on the opportunities, challenges, and common misconceptions surrounding recycled plastics in the piping sector, as well as Pipelife’s ongoing journey toward closed-loop manufacturing.

What inspired you to pursue a career in R&D and, eventually, sustainability?

I'm an engineer by education, and I think what probably motivated me most was trying to turn ideas into products that can solve real-world challenges. For me, it was never only about performance and cost; I guess that's what led me from R&D toward sustainability.

You have been with Pipelife since 1998. What do you consider the most significant sustainability milestone during your career?

When I started, recycling, as a topic, was just not part of the conversation. And now recycling is discussed at every product development we have; I think that is a big achievement.

It started with a few Pipelife countries leading the way, and with the help of the R&D department and the group, we scaled it. Currently, every single Pipelife production site uses recycled materials. 

What is the current state of plastic recycling in Europe? Where does the EU stand globally in terms of recycling rates, regulation and circular economy developments?

I would say the EU is leading in recycling; the regulations are at a very high level. However, there are some areas, especially regarding the collection of higher-quality plastic materials, that still need to be improved.

The best example probably is pipes. Plastic pipes have a very long service life, even more than 100 years. Most pipes are buried underground, so they're not easy to reach. But any retrieved plastic pipe we can recycle and manufacture similar products.

What are the biggest barriers to increasing plastic recycling in Europe?

A lot of plastic is being collected, but the weak points remain: much of it is still very manual. There are not many automated processes in sorting, and this part needs to be, at least for us as an industry, figured out, because we can only use high-quality recycled materials.

Are there any common misconceptions about plastic circularity that you would like to challenge?

The first misconception is that, by collecting waste, we assume all plastics will be recycled, which is incorrect. By far more plastic waste is currently collected than recycled; a lot of it is still incinerated.

The second misconception is that all plastic is unsustainable, which is inherently wrong because plastic can be used to manufacture long-lasting products. It is durable and has excellent performance over many decades. It is wrong to assume that all plastic is unsustainable by definition.

How would you describe the state of plastic recycling in the construction and infrastructure sectors compared to packaging or consumer plastics?

In the piping industry, we are only able to use well-sorted material coming from high-quality products. These can be used pipes or other products of a higher value. You cannot make a plastic pipe out of a plastic bag, unfortunately.

But out of high-quality, well-sorted recycled material, we are able to produce high-quality pipes.

We often hear terms recycling, downcycling and upcycling used interchangeably. Could you explain the difference?

What we do with plastic pipes, I would say, is true recycling. We take up the material from used non-pressure pipes and make new non-pressure pipes.

Downcycling is making a product of lower value; sometimes, the recycled material is just not good enough for the same application. For example, we take a used pressure pipe, which is a high-performance product, and make a non-pressure pipe.

Upcycling would be to create a higher-value product and is relatively rare in the plastic piping industry because of the stringent quality requirements we have.

What about the differences between mechanical and chemical recycling?

I see mechanical recycling as the cleanest and best way forward. Chemical recycling is emerging, and, for everything that cannot be recycled mechanically, it eventually will be the way forward. Currently, it is still rather energy-intensive, but it is a technology for the future.

Which applications can confidently use recycled content today, and which shouldn’t?

We only use recycled materials in non-pressure applications; in pressure applications, it is not allowed. And within the non-pressure applications, there are some that allow for more and some that allow for less recycled content; we comply with the European standards.

In some products, it can be up to 100% recycled material, depending on requirements.

What steps has Pipelife taken to increase the use of recycled materials in production?

Since we operate in most European countries, we try to work with local recycled material suppliers wherever we have production facilities.

In most cases, we cooperate with one or two local suppliers who may not be able to supply the full amount, but we do our best to take as much suitable material as they have available.

We're also working with our production sites to ensure they have the right equipment and the right material flows in their production to use recycled materials, and, of course, we do extensive testing of the recycled materials.

Where does Pipelife already run collection or take-back initiatives, and what would be needed to scale them further?

In Czechia, Slovakia and Poland, we now have close to 100 collection points for used pipes, and there is interest to scale it from both our side and the recyclers.

This initiative started early last year, and we are talking maybe about 1000 tons of pipes being collected, but it has been a significant change because we have been able to find excellent material. We are proving that there is a lot of suitable material out there, and it simply gets lost in the system. We want used pipes to become something that people return to us and to the recycling companies.

In parallel, we have a special application, irrigation, which is the only application where farmers use pipes for one year. After that, we collect them at the end of the irrigation season and bring them to the recycler.  We're doing this currently in Romania, but we do plan to expand it to the Balkans, potentially Turkey, where the irrigation market is.

What measurable successes have been achieved so far? How do these compare with the wider industry?

I would put us among the top three leading companies in Europe, with the potential to grow further. We started with maybe ten kilograms of recycled material per ton of non-pressure products, and we are currently above 120 kilograms.

Our focus is to scale that further in the next few years, and we are working heavily on that, also within TEPPFA to advocate for the use of recycled materials among customers.

Talking about advocacy, how are products containing recycled materials perceived within the construction industry?

The construction industry is using products from recycled materials, but it's not yet mainstream. There is a misconception that pipes made from recycled material are of lower quality or that they're not as durable.

With the high-quality standards in the European market, we can ensure that any pipe made from recycled material, when produced correctly, is fully equivalent to what it should be.

How does Pipelife verify recycled content claims and ensure traceability throughout the value chain?

Recycled materials are traced in the same way as we trace other materials. We have a data sheet; we receive it for every batch and every recycler, then follow it through production so that the end product has traceable data as well.

And, of course, we have quality systems in place: ISO 9000, ISO 4000, ISO 14000.

What end-of-life pathways exist today for plastic pipes, and what’s still missing?

The standardization is moving ahead to allow for more recycled material, but the collection still needs to improve, especially when it comes to preventing recyclable plastic waste from being incinerated. This is key to increasing the amount of recycled material available.

On top, I believe we, as an industry, must find ways to collect more used pipes, to do it on a larger scale.

How do you see plastic recycling evolving in Europe’s piping industry over the next decade?

The recycling industry is going to pick up speed. The potential is there to increase one, two, three or four times what we're doing today.

There are limitations today; there is not enough high-grade recycled material, but in the future, hopefully, there will be. The decarbonization of the industry has started, and I don't think it will be stopped.

Will regulation remain the primary driver of circularity, or will market demand and procurement requirements play a larger role?

Currently, it's driven more by the regulation and the producing companies themselves. I do believe that the market will come into it as well; the public procurement requirements will push the industry in this direction.

In the future, we will have overall less waste, but we will sort it much better, so the potential for recycling will increase a lot.

What innovations and processes could improve recycling quality and material traceability?

Today, we are still an industry that is made, I would say, for virgin materials, but we are slowly moving to adapt our factories for the full usage of recycled materials.

The cleaning, automation and quality improvement of the recycled material will move forward. We already see that by mixing different recycled materials, we can improve their quality and make them more suitable for production use.

The last step is for our customers to accept that as well and adapt with us to choose more products produced from recycled materials. This way, we can decarbonize the whole chain.