The European Plastic Pipes and Fittings Association (TEPPFA), is delighted to announce that its Forum 2016 was a great success. The 25th anniversary event took place in Brussels on April 4 and 5. More than 130 stakeholders took part in the forum, which included presentations, panel discussions and debates on subjects which are critical for the plastic pipes sector.

The Forum opened with a session on the “Circular Economy” with contributions from high level speakers: Aurore Maillet, member of the cabinet of commissioner Carmenu Vella, Niels Rune Solgaard-Nielsen, CEO Pipelife, Ruben Dekker, environment attaché permanent representation of the Netherlands to the EU, and Riccardo Viaggi, secretary general, European Builders Confederation.

This was followed by a debate looking into global challenges and opportunities for the plastic pipes sector moderated by James Crisp, news editor, EurActiv. The panelists included industry representatives from various international markets: Robert Lawrence, Gulf Plastic Pipes Association, Alexandre Dangis, EuPC, Robert G. Spekreijse, Rollepaal, Saurabh Dhanorkar, Finolex India.

The second day of the Forum kicked off with conference session 3 - Policy objectives of PEF, moderated by Gwenole Cozigou, EU Commission DG Grow. Michele Galatola, EU Commission DG Env, provided a summary of the status quo, while Mark Goedkoop, CEO PRé, shared an expert’s perspective. Paolo Masoni, research director, Enea, presented highlights of new Italian PEF based legislation. Frédéric Midy, CEO Emea, Aliaxis and Christophe Sykes, construction products Europe provided valuable input and discussion.

Conference session 4 focused on the new Circular Economy package and what it means for the industry. Moderated by Claudia Topalli and with a keynote speech from MEP Giovanni La Via, president of Envi Committee, and the contribution of speakers Karl Foerster, Plastics Europe, Fulvia Raffaelli, EU Commission, DG Grow, Ferran Rosa, Zero Waste Europe, Gabriel Spruijt, Tessenderlo and Cees Luttikhuizen, Dutch ministry for infrastructure and environment.

A further conference session moderated by Tony Frost, Acquafocus tackled the issues and challenges of drinking water in Europe, with speakers: Tobias Biermann, EU Commission DG Env, Iain Naismith, The Water Bureau, Markus Bohl, Uponor and with the contribution of Manfred Fuchs, EU Commission DG Grow.

The final session, moderated by Tony Calton, TEPPFA general manager, looked at research into the lifetime and quality of plastic pipes with the presentation of case studies by Reinhold Lang, Linz University and Zoran Davidovski, Pipelife.

The conference was concluded with the awarding of the Green Bike prize sponsored by Van Werven to one lucky participant, Sandor Aranyi, APPM.