We should recycle more plastics, but maybe not all of them
A recycling rate for plastic packaging of 55% is required by EU legislation in 2030. Whether we can reach this goal and other questions around how circular plastics can be were debated in a discussion round in Vienna (in German), moderated by ESD PhD student Magdalena Klotz.
The Vienna Institute for Resources and Waste organizes so-called Trash Talks, in which topics around resource management are discussed. The first Trash Talk dealt with circular economy for plastics and was moderated by Magdalena Klotz, who is also investigating how to lower the environmental impacts of plastics in her PhD studies at ESD. The guests were Prof. Kerstin Kuchta of TU Hamburg, Wolfgang Hofer from OMV as well as Prof. em. Paul H. Brunner and Assoc. Prof. Johann Fellner of TU Vienna.
They discussed that for a share of the plastic waste the best solution is probably an energetic utilization. All participants agreed that mechanical and chemical plastic recycling do not directly compete with each other. Another conclusion was that light plastic packaging can save CO2 emissions and avoiding the use of it in Austria or Switzerland does not lower the amount of plastics in oceans.
The video here above contains the first part of the talk, for part two and three please go external pagehere.