Unlike other materials, plastics can be composed and tailored individually for the intended application. This is the reason why polymer materials are in such widespread use – for packaging food, sealing motors and engines, storing blood for transfusion, and producing ultrathin photovoltaic elements. No two applications are alike, and each one demands a special kind of know-how in handling the respective polymer. With a material this versatile, it is no wonder how broadly diversified a field the plastics and rubber industry works in.
The development and production of polymers as well as their downstream processing, manufacturing and recovery all require a huge range of different skills and competences: lab technicians, industrial mechanics, mechatronics technicians, plastics technicians, engineers, machine designers, plant electronics specialists, materials experts, chemists, IT and software specialists, product designers, researchers, developers, equipment designers, and many more.