Besides the large-scale production of raw material by the Shell petrochemical industries, the province of South Holland hosts a number of businesses that are involved in the production of plastics. Approximately 30 companies manufacture plastics in primary form and there are major producers of plastic resins and PVC. Inhabitants and businesses in the region consume around 360,000 tons of plastic every year. Minor amounts of this waste are deposited or recycled; the vast majority (77%) is burned (Drift and Metabolic, 2018). To reform plastic cycles is therefore an important aim of the province of South Holland; as a host to multiple production sites, it ambitions to become a leading region in the transition towards a circular plastics economy. One of its main objectives is to reduce the use of plastics through offering substitutes that are made of organic, preferably locally produced, raw material. Question on how and where such materials can be generated arise and how their production and processing can be linked in ways that, for an instance, benefit the port industrial complex. Another main objective is an improved system for the collection of plastic waste. Such a system should stimulate a diversified, more intense and more innovative re- and up-cycling of collected materials, should be aligned with other material flow systems - e.g. organic waste – and should not exceed provincial boundaries (‘no leakage’).
