Trays Circularity Evaluation Platform from PETCORE Europe

PET Thermoforms represent more than one million tons of PET packaging in Europe and the sector is gearing up towards circularity. The Tray Circularity Evaluation Platform (TCEP) has been created to support the development of the recycling of thermoforms.

The tools developed and used by TCEP

TCEP has developed design guidelines for PET Thermoforms that are widely recognised and used by the industry.

Strong testing procedures have been established to assess recyclability and a modus operandi ensures that the assessments are based on scientific evidence and final assessment is valid for the whole value chain.

As a result, these assessments are scientifically relevant, trusted, and independent from the views of any one single sector.

The Team

Created in 2020, TCEP relies on the expertise of experienced professionals from across the full value chain who are active in the sectors of recycling, thermoforms conversion and waste management.

Argiris Dabanlis

Argiris Dabanlis holds the position of PETCORE Europe Technical Manager since September 2021. In parallel he is the General Secretary of EPBP (European Pet Bottle Platform) and TCEP (Trays Circularity Evaluation Platform) He possesses MEng (1983), MSc (2007), MBA (2018), has technical, and executive business background experience. Argiris started his career at Petzetakis – Pipelife plastic pipe industry and then, he moved to FMCG area. He worked for Coca-Cola Hellenic in Greece and Armenia and then, moved to The Coca-Cola Company, holding senior technical position for Central-Southeastern Europe Business Unit, for more than 26 years.

Chloé Sabathier

Eco-conception – Responsable R&D emballages rigides

Ermis Panagiotopoulos

Ermis Panagiotopoulos holds a bachelor’s degree (BSc) in Water Management and Agriculture Engineering (Greece), a master’s degree (MSc) in Environmental Science from Wageningen University (Netherlands) and an MA in International Politics (Brussels). Ermis has been living and working in Brussels since 2006. He has worked in environmental NGOs, European Commission, and industry associations. He is currently the Head of Sustainability Advocacy EMEA at Indorama Ventures PCL. His expertise is diverse and includes issues such as agriculture, energy, water, waste and circular economy. 

Hagen Hélène

Ingénieure Matériaux Polymères | Expertise et gestion de projet pour l’éco-conception et le recyclage des emballages plastiques

José Antonio Alarcon 

José Antonio has a degree in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Granada (Spain) and PDD from the Austral University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Jose Antonio has been involved in the Plastics industry for 35 years, mainly concentrated in the PET industry, involved in Virgin PET, Co-polyesters, Recycling and Packaging business. He has developed his carrier in Multinational companies as Eastman, Artenius, and Selenis.   José Antonio is currently CEO of IGBS, dedicated to Technical, Operational and Business consultancy, with special focus on the Plastic industry. As independent consultant, he has collaborated in the past with Petcore-Europe as coordinator of the Thermoforming Working Group  He´s currently collaborates with Indorama in Different recycling integration projects.  In December, Jose Antonio started a collaboration with Petcore Europe to work as Secretary of the Functional Barrier Consortium.

Luca Stramare

After holding positions in PET packaging design and PET resin manufacturing companies, back in 2011 he moved to COREPLA, starting a journey into plastic packaging waste collection, sorting and recycling and design for recycling. Since the beginning of 2025, he works for CONAI., which is the main EPR scheme for packaging in Italy, holding the responsibility for achievement of the recycling targets and for reporting to the government on packaging recycling and for other packaging related obligations. On the top of fulfilling the EPR responsibilities, CONAI provides extensive support to the value chain on topics related to packaging sustainability. Within CONAI Luca is Director of the Research Centre for the Circular Economy. He is responsible for promoting, coordinating, and developing projects and research focused on sustainability, circular economy, and packaging sustainability. He specifically concentrates on creating tools for companies and associations to facilitate eco-design and innovation. Luca is also accountable for the annual validation of procedures for determining packaging data and the preparation of official documentation for data submission to the competent authorities. Additionally, he oversees international relationships and provide technical support to the Presidency and the Executive Management during public events related to my area of expertise. He also held the role of Secretary General of the EPBP from 2014 to 2020. Luca has 30 years of experience in plastic packaging and plastic packaging recycling, with a specific focus on PET. His expertise includes polymer chemistry, packaging design and performance evaluation, packaging food contact compliance, and packaging end of life management: separate collection, sorting and recycling.

Matthias Mazurelle

Graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Industries Agricoles et Alimentaires (ENSIA) in France. I have more than 30 years of experience in flexible packaging, including more than 20 years in the development of new markets and polyester films. Today I am responsible for the business development and sustainability at Transparent Paper Ltd. one of the main players in BOPET films in Europe. I am a French national, have 3 children and have been living in Switzerland for 15 years.

Raphaël Jaumotte

He has been for more than 20 years in the business of PET recycling. Held various positions related to quality, environment, operations, purchasing and projects. His last position prior to joining Petcore Europe, was Director of Projects and Quality for the Plastipak Beaune (FR) operation producing more than 45.000T/y of food grade rPET for Plastipak’s preform injection operations with the main focus on continuously improving quality and output. He was formerly a board member and a treasurer of Petcore Europe and a board member of the French Elipso association. Raphael is based near Nuits-Saint-Georges in France.

Samuel Pardo

Dr. Samuel Pardo currently leads strategic innovations in the kp business ensuring that any development is sustainable. His expertise deals with polymer science and processing. Most recently he has led circularity projects across the whole value chain with high focus design for recyclability and incorporating recycled content into food packaging. Focus is driving future technology projects that have the potential to change the packaging industry. He is member of TCEP Technical Committee and Board Member of PETSHEET Europe/EUPC working group.

Sergio Collado

A Chemical Engineer from the Superior School of Engineering of Seville.  The beginning of his career was linked to polymers in a SBR production facility, after this he participated in the development of the Single Operation Procedures and One Point Lessons instructions, and TPM for packaging lines at KRONES (2008-2012). Between 2012 and 2015 he was dedicated to the agri-food industry in the development of selective liquid-liquid and solid-liquid extraction processes for the recovery of olive industry residues rich in phenols and terpenes. After a brief stint in the construction sector where he led an EU-funded project for the development of resilient bitumen-polyurea pavements to increase urban safety, he joined the Sulayr GS team in 2016-2017 as head of R&D, and since 2018 as technical director of the Sulayr Group.   He has extensive experience in the development of mechanical and chemical processes for waste recovery and, especially in biphasic or triphasic interactions, such as liquid-liquid extraction or froth-flotation processes.   He has participated in a patent (as an inventor) to produce food spherifications and in the last years has developed a process for post-consumer tray recycling.

Simone Tirelli

Simone Tirelli is a management engineer (M.Sc) graduated from the Politecnico of Milan and specialized in operations. Passionate about challenges and new technologies, he makes innovation and continuous improvement his “credo”. After starting his career in the automotive sector as a process engineer, where he took care of the re-engineering of “human intensive” production lines for a large Italian multinational company from a Lean Production perspective, Simone joined SirapGema, a leading Italian multinational company in Europe in the production of food packaging in EPS and PET. For 7 years he took key roles in the development of the company business in the technical and R&D area, from the installation of new production lines in Italy, Poland and UK to the birth of new coatings and cutting-edge technological solutions in food preservation and shelf life. He has 4 patents to his credit as an inventor. Since 2021, following the Danish Faerch Group’s acquisition of part of SirapGema, Simone has been working as Group Project Manager in the group’s recycling division. He is currently participating in the European development of Tray Recycling in the Dutch plant of Cirrec, a company of the Faerch group, where he is responsible for processes development with particular focus in washing and sorting activities. Founding member of the Italian Environment Foundation (FIA) where he holds the position of vice president, Simone also boasts experiences on the board of some local public private companies ranging from multi-utilities to the social welfare world. In his free time, he loves basketball, traveling and exploring new places. He is engaged to Marta, with whom he shares his love for animals.

Looking to the future:

The Platform can rely on a strong network of more than 160 companies, who are PETCORE members and able to bring complementary expertise whenever needed.

The Platform is also supportive of the European standardisation process on the design guidelines for PET Thermoforms and their recyclability assessment with CEN.

To further improve the recycling of thermoforms, we call upon all companies to bring their new PET thermoforms solutions and innovations to TCEP in order to get an objective, third party assessment of their recyclability.

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