It’s a #Plastic Life: How innovative solutions set up industries and homes more sustainably
About 400 million tons of plastic are produced every year around the world for goods that are indispensable to daily life, healthcare, mobility, and technology. The downside: growing landfills and #microplastics polluting the oceans. As much as we need plastic products, we need to do better and foster the development and use of #sustainable plastics that support the vision of a #circular economy.
In Ottawa, Canada, #UN delegates are debating April 23-29 about the global plastic pollution treaty, known as #INC-4. Organizations such as WWF call on governments to establish global requirements on product design and performance to ensure the reduction, reuse and safe recycling for all plastic products. The ambition behind such a treaty: Global, legally binding rules can help scale solutions, spark innovation and mobilize investments across the plastics value chain.
As a leading innovator in the field of plastics solutions, we could not agree more with that ambitious goal. We are convinced that plastics can be part of the solution!
Meet our future: We foster a circular economy that is part of everyday life
At CHINAPLAS 2024 (April 23-26), the world's leading technology-oriented plastics and rubber trade fair, we demonstrate how the plastics industry can do its part. Under the motto “Meet our future, today”, Covestro showcases the latest achievements for material innovations in the sectors Home, Life, and City. What we aim for is no less than an evolution towards a circular economy that is part of everyday life.
It is a big task, no doubt, but we have already come a long way. At Covestro, we offer our customers a growing portfolio of more sustainable polycarbonates. The mechanically recycled Makrolon® R products and certified mass-balanced grades of the Makrolon® RE series are being produced using biowaste and bio-residues such as used cooking oil.
Already today, numerous products are made from these materials, such as trendy luggage made of recycled water barrels, and switches and sockets made of biowaste and residues.
New materials allow for high-tech applications and can save resources
The newest member of the family and a milestone in building the circular economy is Makrolon® RP, polycarbonates based on chemically recycled post-consumer waste via mass balance. It is the first product related to chemically recycled post-consumer waste to answer regulatory requirements such as the European End-of-Life Vehicle Directive (ELV) and the U.S. Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) for electronics products. As a solution with identical properties, production and product specifications as fossil-based polycarbonate, it helps to conserve fossil resources and to give a second life to existing waste streams.
Innovative polymer solutions can do even more. At CHINAPLAS, we introduced new polycarbonate copolymers APEC® XT with unique and improved mechanical properties. There are many possible applications – in the electrical and electronics industries, in 5G communication, for IoT applications and e-mobility charging infrastructure, in the healthcare industry, and in sustainable energy solutions like photovoltaic.
Better together: How partnerships and cooperative research foster circularity
Innovation works best with cooperation. If we want to establish a fully circular economy, strong partnerships are vital. For example, we believe that the residual plastic from electronic devices is too valuable to be discarded and has the potential to be not only recycled but remade into similar electronic products. This is called closed-loop recycling. Achieving this would require commitment and collaboration among multiple value chain and ecosystem players.
Innovative recycling is a focus area of our cooperative research and development efforts to foster circularity. At Covestro, we support this vision also in the automotive sector. In China, Covestro started a pilot program with several international partners to create a closed loop for car-to-car plastic recycling in the automotive industry. A team of experts will research methods for recycling used polycarbonate parts, such as car headlights, into PCR polycarbonates. The recycled materials are then reused for various vehicle interior and exterior applications, saving resources and reducing CO2 emissions.
So, to really make plastics part of the solution and to become fully circular, our industry must double their efforts to become part of the solution. Or, as a quote credited to inventor Thomas Edison puts it: “There’s a way to do it better. Find it.“