Philosophy

Plastic is a central material to all of our daily lives.

Compared to all alternatives, plastics are extremely resource efficient. This circumstance, combined with their remarkable versatility as a material, make them an indispensable commodity.

Therefore, plastic can be found almost everywhere: in packaging material as well as many common household items, but also in specialized products such as medical instruments and car parts. Manufacturing and processing of plastic is a huge industry employing over 1.5 million people in about 60 000 companies in the EU only.1 This market is expected to double again in the next 20 years.

However, just those properties that make plastic so important -durability and longevity- make it impossible to degrade naturally. This has vast environmental implications. Research suggests that our oceans currently contain around 150 million tons of plastic and that by 2050 there will be more mass of plastic waste in the ocean than fish. But there’s also economic implications. Plastics stay in their original form far, far longer than their average time of use, but still, 2.6 trillion dollars worth of plastic end up in our world’s landfills or are burned in incineration plants every year. The use of a long-lived material in a linear consumption pattern uncovers the need for an improved recycling system.

Currently, only 14% of plastic packages are collected for recycling and through those recycling processes, only 5% of the original material value can be retained. This is because plastics are mostly downcycled to lower-value products, which then cannot be recycled themselves. With that in mind, it is no wonder that global recycling rates for materials such as paper (58%), iron and steel (70 – 90%) are far superior. Plastic as a material needs to be redefined significantly, to improve the environmental situation as well. Creating a lucrative after-use market for plastic materials can give great incentive to build up collection and reprocessing infrastructures, hence reduce the amount of materials entering the natural environment. 2

1: PlasticsEurope (2016) Plastics – the facts 2014/2015: an analysis of European plastics production, demand and waste data. URL: http://www.plasticseurope.org/Document/plastics---the-facts-2016-15787.aspx?Page=DOCUMENT&FolID=2

2: L. Neufeld, F. Stassen, R. Sheppard, T. Gilman, Eds., The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics (World Economic Forum, 2016);www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_New_Plastics_Economy.pdf..