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Image: a person holding a sign that says 'recycled material' in front of some pullovers; Copyright: Pressmaster

Closed loop recycling for more sustainability in the textile industry

23.10.2024

Everyone is talking about recycling, and yet there are sectors where it is only used to a very limited extent - for example in the textile and clothing industry. Fristdas has managed to create a closed loop recycling system for its clothing. In this interview, Lena Bay Højland explains how this affects the product range and what Fristads' vision is for further development.
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Image: Plastic flakes being poured out of a pipe; Copyright: Interzero

Digital Twin for Resource Management

14.08.2024

The circular economy presents an increasingly complex challenge for companies. Sustainability is no longer just a compliance issue but a crucial success factor. In this context, Interzero offers a solution: the Materialkonto (‘material account’). This provides companies with a digital twin of their resource and circular management.
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Image: Symbolic image on the subject of traceability; Copyright: AndSus – stock.adobe.com

Covestro and Alibaba Cloud for Supply Chain Transparency

02.08.2024

Driven by increasing consumer expectations and regulatory requirements, the need to measure the use of sustainable materials and their associated carbon footprints has become essential. Covestro and Alibaba Cloud have teamed up to develop solutions that enhance supply chain transparency, focusing on sustainable plastics and carbon accounting through advanced digital technologies.
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Image: small, colorful plastic parts enlarged with a magnifying glass; Copyright: SKZ

Digital Recycling Tool: CYCLOPS

03.07.2024

An innovative tool called CYCLOPS – Circularity Optimisation for Plastics has set itself the task of closing the gap between the need for information and the supply of recycled materials. By providing comprehensive data and assessments, it helps companies to make more sustainable decisions and organise their production processes in a more environmentally friendly way.
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Image: Vytal Pepsi Cup being held aloft at an event; Copyright: Vytal

Digital reusable cup from Vytal and PepsiCo

19.06.2024

Vytal and PepsiCo are taking reusable tableware to a new level in their cooperation. With individual IDs for each cup, which can be read using a QR code or RFID tag, efficiency at large events is increased enormously. The technology not only optimises the return of the cups, but also the entire recycling process, thus making an important contribution to the Circular Economy.
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Image: red and white industrial plant against a neutral background; Copyright: Wittmann Inc.

"Industrial communication will change”

20.05.2024

Industry interview on OPC UA with Dana Ford, Auxiliary Controls Engineer for Material Handling/Auxiliary at Wittmann Inc.
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Image: two men standing in front of the display of a large industrial machine; Copyright: Billion SAS

OPC UA significantly simplifies processes

30.04.2024

Industry interview with Georg Kiesl, General Manager at Billion SAS on the spread of the OPC UA standard in the USA.
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Image: Abstract image with various symbols on the topic of OPC UA; Copyright: Funtap - stock.adobe.com

PLASTICS and VDMA must work together on OPC UA

22.03.2024

Industry interview on OPC UA with Glenn Anderson, Chief Operating Officer at the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS) and Thorsten Kühmann, Managing Director of the VDMA Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association
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Image: Recyclates; Copyright: Cirplus

Digital marketplace as a driver for the Circular Economy

10.01.2024

The forthcoming EU packaging regulation is casting its shadow: minimum quotas for recyclates are putting the plastics industry under pressure. Cirplus presents a digital platform that not only makes the recyclate market transparent, but also enables real-time coordination between the players.
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Image: Robots at work in the Automated Lab of the Henkel Inspiration Center; Copyright: Henkel AG

Automated Lab: Robots optimise adhesive development

10.05.2023

Robots already take over a large number of monotonous, repetitive tasks today – freeing up time and resources for creative and more exciting tasks. Henkel is also automating work steps in its new Inspiration Center Düsseldorf (ICD). In a data-driven laboratory, new adhesive formulations are automatically prepared and tested around the clock.
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Image: Woman in a supermarket taking a carton of milk from the shelf; Copyright: RossHelen

Circular Collaboration Platform: for more recyclates in food packaging

21.04.2023

The share of recycled material in plastic products is growing. The exception: food packaging. The requirements for the quality of the material for food contact are high, but in the case of recyclates there is still often a lack of corresponding information today. The project COPPA wants to create transparency in this area – with an open digital platform.
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ENGEL launches Pay per Use

09.01.2023

ENGEL breaks new ground in injection moulding machine distribution. Blazing a trail for its industry, the machine manufacturer now offers its customers a pay-per-use model on top of classical machine purchases. This helps processors to reduce their investment risk while at the same time boosting flexibility in production.
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Innovation venture of Covestro awarded: Niaga® wins Circular Economy Prize

04.01.2023

Niaga®, an innovation venture of Covestro, is the winner of the 2022 European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Community Circular Economy Prize in the Digital Products Passports (DPP) category. The EIT Circular Economy Community awards relevant start-ups and SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) with significant new solutions accelerating the circular economy.
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Photo: Coal-fired power plant with high pipes with black smoke; Copyright: bilanol

Lessons from natural photosynthesis: conversion of CO2 to raw materials for plastic

21.10.2022

A research team at Osaka Metropolitan University has succeeded in producing fumarate from pyruvate and CO2 through artificial photosynthesis. Fumarate can be used to produce biodegradable plastic such as polybutylene succinate. In this process, the carbon is stored in a compact, durable and solid form.
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Create a quote for plastic testing services in just minutes

07.06.2022

Plastics are versatile and come in every conceivable shape, size, color, and function. Yet before plastic products can fulfill their desired function, they are subject to testing to confirm they comply with various standards. It takes testing labs hours, if not days, to create a quote for materials testing.
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Image: White KN95 face masks FFP2 mask as covid 19 protection lie on top of each other. ; Copyright: jirkaejc

Borealis and Grabher partnership gives used FFP2 face masks another life

09.05.2022

High-quality face masks made in Austria by Grabher contain fully recyclable meltblown polypropylene supplied by Borealis and can be recycled in Austria. The new Partnership between the companies Borealis and Grabher is embodiment of the Borealis EverMinds™ spirit of taking action to accelerate the move towards plastics circularity.
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BASF and NEVEON cooperate on mattress recycling

24.03.2022

The first trials on chemical recycling of mattresses by BASF and NEVEON were successful. BASF is developing a wet chemical recycling process for used mattresses made of flexible polyurethane. Mattress take-back pilot is an important step towards circular economy.
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ERDE Recycling: recovery and recycling systems for agricultural plastics

18.03.2022

ERDE is a recovery and recycling system focused on the return of silage sheets and covers and agricultural stretch films in Europe. The company has big goals, such as a recycling rate of 65 percent in 2022, but also faces challenges, such as the cross-border transport of agricultural plastics.
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PERC Solar Cells from 100 Percent Recycled Silicon

07.03.2022

In order to be able to reuse silicon, a working group from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE and the largest German recycling company for PV modules, Reiling GmbH & Co. KG, have developed a solution, in which the silicon in the discarded modules was recycled on an industrial scale and reused to produce new PERC solar cells.
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Using circular economy principles to recycle toys

28.12.2021

Many of us are familiar with this scene in our children’s bedrooms: when the kids have outgrown their toys, the latter typically get boxed up until we finally take heart and purge them. But it doesn’t have to be that way: the initiative of the HolyPoly company takes recycling steps to create new toys – that look slightly different.
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Program aims to help students tackle the challenges of plastics waste

07.12.2021

Plastics waste presents a major challenge for humanity. There are many innovative people taking impactful action to address this issue, but their efforts are often on a small scale or overlooked, with no good means to scale them to make a significant difference.
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Digital marketplace for recyclates: cirplus networks entire value chain

25.11.2021

Sometimes you have to see a problem with your own eyes – or feel it with your own feet – to want to do something about it. At least that's how it was for Christian Schiller, who launched cirplus, a digital marketplace for recyclates.
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URI launches 'Plastics: Land to Sea' web platform

08.11.2021

A new University of Rhode Island web platform, "Plastics: Land to Sea," has been launched to provide the science community with a burgeoning array of data resources and tools designed to inform and support dialogue concerning research focused efforts to start addressing plastics pollution. The platform can be found at: plastics.uri.edu.
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The many ways that 'going digital' is changing manufacturing

23.08.2021

There are many aspects and forms of digitalization in manufacturing, ranging from Industry 4.0, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence and additive manufacturing, to augmented and virtual reality, 5G connectivity, mobile apps, blockchain technology, and more.
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Circular Economy: using digital tools to produce high-quality recyclates

03.08.2021

Only a small percentage of materials currently used in plastic processing are recyclates. Yet these secondary plastics are in no way of inferior quality to virgin material. The culprit is often a lack of data and poor communication between recyclers and plastic manufacturers. Digital solutions can help close material cycles in the plastics industry.
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South Tangerang, Indonesia. © Tom Fisk, pexels.com

Sustainable packaging: towards a circular economy in the Asian market

09.06.2021

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Today's waste becomes tomorrow's resource: "Waste4Future" paves new ways for plastics recycling

17.05.2021

A sustainable society with climate-neutral processes requires significant adjustments in the value chains, which are only possible through innovations. Seven Fraunhofer Institutes are pooling their expertise in the lighthouse project Waste4Future to develop new solutions for this goal, from the raw material base to material flows and process engineering right to the end of a product's life cycle.
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Industry 4.0: "We should seize opportunities and create added digital value"

04.05.2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the rise of the digital workplace. This also applies to industry in general, where massive amounts of data are collected from countless sources. The so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution (or Industry 4.0) aims to use this data to gain actionable insights and target the development of marketable products, technologies, and services.
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PRISM – a data platform for the circular economy

06.04.2021

In mid-December, U.S. IT company IBM announced it had joined the Alliance to End Plastic Waste. Together, they are designing the PRISM platform – a unified ecosystem of NGOs, the plastic value chain participants, communities, regulators, and any organization looking to deploy and improve waste management decisions and programs.
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