Our global reach in growing, and we are excited. The expertise of our team is recognised worldwide, and we have been invited to consult an EPR organisation in South Africa in its consultations with the state considering mandatory EPR regulations that are in the pipeline. It is always exciting to be involved in the evolution of these policies and we are glad to be able to contribute to improving the regulations and establishing proper EPR principles from the outset. What we repeatedly experience in such circumstances, is that the states are also in need of the close cooperation with the industry and international expertise to take the right steps. Nurturing a fertile ecosystem for the EPR to blossom and provide real results for a country, is not an easy task. Twenty-six years of experience with EPR in the EU, highlight just that. Two many of the EU governments are still struggling to understand the EPR dynamics, they are struggling to define their role in the network of stakeholders and many times they make decisions that obstruct rather than facilitate their EPR initiatives. Learning from the mistakes of others is a luxury worth exploiting. We try to combine all these experiences to help the evolution of better EPR around the globe.
Extended Producer Responsibility is expanding around the globe, at a time we envisage in the near future, significant reshuffling of EPR in countries with more mature EPR systems. Climbing recycling targets, self-commitment of significant multinationals to even more ambitious recycling targets and EU regulations to separately collect specific types of packages (i.e. PET bottles) and recycle them at a very high percentage, are expected to redraft the EPR agenda. Packaging EPR organisations ought to think out of the box at these crossroads. Business in the years to come, will not be business as usual for the industry EPR organisations. We are also excited to be able to become part of this evolution.