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Image: Chemical recycling plant of Arcus-Greencycling Technologies GmbH; Copyright: Arcus-Greencycling Technologies GmbH

"Considerably more fossil oil would be consumed without mass balance"

22/09/2023

"By utilising our technology, we can produce a pyrolysis oil from strongly mixed plastic waste that also contains polymers such as PVC, PET, ABS and many others. We process the plastic waste the way it arrives from a waste sorting plant or from partners in industry."
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Image: Chemical recycling plant of OMV Downstream GmbH; Copyright: OMV Downstream GmbH

"Chemical recycling has the potential to close the existing gap in circular economy"

18/09/2023

"Chemical recycling is complementary to mechanical recycling and therefore of high priority for OMV – it is an important cornerstone of our Strategy 2030. It helps us to meet the growing demand for recycled polyolefins. Back in 2009 we developed a laboratory scale process that has since been patented."
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Image: Coperion plant; Copyright: Coperion

"Chemical recycling is still in its infancy, but has huge potential"

16/08/2023

"At the moment an increasing number of large corporations are jumping on the chemical recycling bandwagon, all of them operating internationally. There is hope that they will contribute considerably towards the implementation of the necessary infrastructure in all parts of the world."
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Image: Sutco plant in Stockholm; Copyright: Sutco

"There must not be a cannibalisation of material flows"

16/08/2023

"Unlike mechanical recycling, chemical recycling breaks down these compounds instead of utilising existing polymers as material."
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Image: Prof. Dr. Manfred Renner; Copyright: Fraunhofer UMSICHT

"There is no one and only solution for recycling"

25/07/2023

The future of circular economy in the plastics industry is a complex mixture of mechanical and chemical recycling. Prof. Dr. Manfred Renner, Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology (UMSICHT), describes these technologies as indispensable components of the life cycle of plastics.
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Image: Boris Engelhardt; Copyright: wdk

Together for Sustainability (TfS): "The name is the message"

07/07/2023

The German Rubber Manufacturers’ Association (wdk) has been committed to responsible procurement practices for raw materials and services in the rubber industry for many years. To advance the implementation of this goal, the wdk is now cooperating with Together for Sustainability (TfS), an international non-profit initiative.
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Image: Inside a plastic recycling plant; Copyright: Shutterstock/Nordroden

A status check on the UN's plastic waste agreement

24/04/2023

Plastic pollution is a serious threat to human health and the environment. After years of awareness-raising, there is strong and widespread alignment on the need to act. This was the unmistakable and welcome message from the U.N.'s first negotiating session on a global agreement to end plastic waste in December.
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Photo: waste separation. Left: Two trash cans. Right: A trash can and a filled trash bag; Copyright:

Public obligations for recycling: Germany – a good role model?

16/08/2022

With the Packaging Act, Germany is taking a further step towards an all-encompassing raw material cycle for packaging. One of the requirements aims to significantly increase the amount of recyclable packaging. Packaging used in mail order or "dispensed" for to-go products has recently been required to be registered in the LUCID Packaging Register.
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Plastic snowfall in the Alps

21/02/2022

To study how much plastic is trickling down on us from the atmosphere, Empa researcher Dominik Brunner, together with colleagues from Utrecht University and the Austrian Central Institute for Meteorology and Geophysics, have developed a chemical method that determines the contamination of the samples with a mass spectrometer.
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New market data on the bioplastics market 2021

14/01/2022

The Institute for Bioplastics and Biocomposites presents the new edition of its brochure with the title "Biopolmers - Facts and statistics" to show how the bioplastics market is developing.
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