Mattias Philipsson, CEO of Svensk Plaståtervinning, participated on 5 May in a roundtable in Amsterdam with EU Commissioner Jessika Roswall. The following day, he was awarded the title of Plastics Recycling Ambassador of the Year.
Roswall holds the portfolio for environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy. The roundtable brought together stakeholders from across the plastics value chain to give the Commissioner a real-world picture of the recycling industry’s current situation, ahead of the introduction of the Circular Economy Act expected in autumn 2026.
Svensk Plaståtervinning put forward three messages to the Commissioner: that the direction and timeline of the PPWR – and Europe’s circular transition as a whole – must remain firm; that Europe’s resilience is best strengthened through a circular and harmonised internal market; and that recycled materials must be given better competitive conditions against virgin raw materials and linear alternatives such as incineration, through clear policy measures and economic incentives.
“The European plastics recycling industry is under serious pressure, but there is also a strong will and tremendous opportunities to make plastics part of the circular economy. We must seize that opportunity”, says Mattias Philipsson, CEO of Svensk Plaståtervinning.
The following day, Mattias Philipsson was awarded the Plastics Recycling Ambassador of the Year at the Plastics Recycling Awards Europe 2026 – part of the tenth edition of Plastics Recycling Show Europe. The award recognises an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to advancing the role of plastics recycling in Europe’s transition to a circular economy.
“Incredibly honourable and unexpected – I am both proud and happy”, says Philipsson.
Svensk Plaståtervinning operates Site Zero in Motala – the world’s largest and most advanced sorting facility for plastic packaging. The facility sorts up to 95 per cent of incoming material into 12 separate plastic fractions with up to 98 per cent purity. The company is non-profit and owned by the industry organisations within the producer responsibility system.
