The second Compounding World Expo in Essen was again organised by AMI and took place on 29 and 30 September 2021. It was held at the same time and place together with the Plastics Recycling World Expo, the Plastics Extrusion World Expo and the Polymer Testing World Expo.

The exhibition was a good opportunity to be actually "on location" again and the numbers confirmed the regained confidence in face-to-face meetings and the possibility of networking. This year's event recorded an increase of 18% in the number of exhibitors compared to the previous time and saw the presence of European exhibitors and visitors alike, whereas overseas visitors were limited due to the travel restrictions caused by COVID-19. More than 50% of the visitors came from outside Germany.

The two days were filled with seminars, technical presentations and debates, that were attended with utmost interest. The themes ranged from the discussion about the future of technical compounds to recycling and upcycling solutions for compounding extruders to measuring and understanding extruder wear.

It was interesting to notice that many Italian OEMs attended both the exhibition in Essen and the Packaging & Recycling convention in Arese (which took place at the same time). All major Italian players were present: Maris, Icma, Comac, Fimic, Filtec, Bandera as well as some well-known companies such as Sirmax, Mepol and Benvic.

One of the guiding themes was the green economy and one of the mostly discussed themes was recycling.