Sabic
Frank Kuijpers, General Manager Corporate Sustainability at SABIC, identifies the barriers preventing circular systems
What do you see being the greatest opportunity or barrier to plastics circularity?
The appropriate connection between plastic waste sorting and associated recycling techniques.
- How is innovation enabling the move toward circular systems? Which initiatives or technologies are you most excited about?
Design for circularity will be critical to further upscale the circularity of plastics. Today we have to manage plastic waste which might not bring us beyond 50% of circularity over the next three decades. When design for circularity impacts waste of the future, this might go well beyond the 50% over the next three decades.
Single use plastic must become fully circular to prevent it from ending up in the environment. That is the focus of today because plastic in the environment creates a bad feeling toward plastics which we have to help turn around.
- Why is the Rethinking Materials summit an important date in your diary?
Communication on what we all can do jointly and in many cases, collaboration is essential to create tangible steps in circularity of plastics and materials.
Frank will join leaders from Canopy and Nafici Environmental Research on the panel ‘The Systemic Change Needed to Turn the Tide on Plastic Waste’ at Rethinking Materials this May 4-5.
Deloitte & Suez
Zoe Hawes from Deloitte and Adam Read from SUEZ dive into the UK Plastic Tax
Speaking with Rethinking Materials conference producer Ellen Mcleay, Zoe Hawes, Director – Indirect Tax at Deloitte, and Adam Read, External Affairs Director at Suez Recycling and Recovery, opened up about the regulatory landscape for virgin, recycled and bio-based plastics.
Watch the 25 minute discussion for exclusive insights the UK Plastic Tax answering questions such as ‘Is the Industry Ready?’ and ‘Is it Enough to Drive Change?’
Adam Read will join leaders from Biotec, Novamont, CIC, OWS and BASF on the panel ‘Advances in Waste Valorisation: Opportunities and Potential for Organic Recycling’.
Clemence Schmid, Executive VP Commercial Loop Global at TerraCycle, shares how recycling is key when it comes to circularity
- What do you see being the greatest opportunity or barrier to plastics circularity?
The greatest opportunity is also the biggest potential barrier – convenience. Our research has shown that consumers may aspire to sacrifice convenience, but they never actually do it, not en mass and not consistently. That’s where a lot of reuse models struggle and become a little bit more aspirational than mainstream. They may ask the consumer to clean and fill the bottle themselves. It is also why Loop has had good momentum. Our central mantra at Loop is that you have to maintain or at least get as close to the convenience afforded by disposability as absolutely possible.
- How is innovation enabling the move toward circular systems? Which initiatives or technologies are you most excited about?
Innovation has been a central part of the Loop’s journey. Working with our partners to develop durable package we realized that they offered not only a more sustainable solution but also a huge opportunity to delight consumers in ways that are not possible in single use where the package is a COGS. We saw beautiful design, more premium materials and even functional upgrade – all of those enabled by moving to a durable packaging.
- What are your favourite examples of circularity in action?
There is nothing better than buying a product that is made from recycled material or incorporates material from an unusual source like ocean or beach plastics.
And from a reuse perspective, seeing Loop’s rapid growth; seeing businesses and consumers receive it so well globally is exciting. It is not merely circularity in action, but innovation that can change the world. While a reuse model, Loop is more than that. Its intent is to provide the service as conveniently and as ubiquitously as possible with the mantra being “buy anywhere, return anywhere.”
- Why is the Rethinking Materials summit an important date in your diary? Who are you looking forward to meeting?
Because its all about innovation, partnership and collaboration.
With such a great line up of sessions and speakers and like-minded delegates all focused on changing the way business is done, I’m excited to hear from and talk with as many like-minded entrepreneurs as possible.
Clemence will join Carrefour on the panel ‘Reduction and Reuse: Developing Business Models to Unlock Economic and Ecological Opportunities’ at Rethinking Materials on May 4-5.
20 minutes with Ho Ren Hua, CEO of Thai Wah
Thai Wah CEO, Ho Ren Hua, joins Rethinking Materials conference producer, Ellen McLeay, to talk about how circularity can be achieved through localised supply chains, good infrastructure and innovative materials such as the world’s first tapioca-based bioplastic.
Jayanthi Rangarajan, Waste-to-Value Expert, explores the amazing potential of waste plastics in the circular economy
- What do you see as being the greatest opportunity or barrier to plastics circularity?
Greatest Opportunity:
If we can cost-effectively recover the carbon in waste plastics and biomass to make new plastics, waste becomes the new “oil”, the gold mine vs being a burden, a scourge, a climate concern. If waste carbon is valuable, it can be transformative to developing nations that can harness this resource, achieve community hygiene and end ocean pollution. If waste is valuable, would you bury it or burn it or ship it to China?
In 1868, Charles Dickens wrote that the Thames was “a deadly sewer … in the place of a fine, fresh river”. Similarly, plastic pollution is a nascent challenge of the last 20 years and plastic circularity provides the impetus for the next phase of planet “clean up”.
Greatest barrier to plastic circularity:
Solving real-world waste plastics to achieve meaningful circularity is believed to lack technology, be cost-prohibitive and require large investment in complex waste infrastructure! I believe technology innovations can remove these hurdles and achieve meaningful impact by 2030.
- How is innovation enabling the move toward circular systems? Which initiatives or technologies are you most excited about?
Corporate initiatives abound to achieve net zero. One corporate example specific to plastic packaging is the airline industry globally, reducing its footprint, proactive collection of its own waste, using the most applicable technologies to recycle, and putting it in front of mind for customers. This type of accountability and initiative is exciting.
- Why is the Rethinking Materials summit an important date in your diary? Who are you looking forward to meeting?
Plastics circularity will enable continuing use of the last 25 years of innovations to leverage plastics as a miracle material and stop living in “fear of plastics”. However, reducing the unnecessary use of plastics is important for climate change, hence I am interested in learning more.
The legacy of recycling is based on separation of materials like glass/aluminium/paper/batteries etc. Recycling plastics needs a different approach because plastics are not all equal (comprising of glues, fillers, dies, mixed material like cotton blend textiles, paper, foil etc.). The technologies available to process the different plastics should drive the collection and sorting infrastructure. Equally the understanding of alternative materials and their “recycling” process. Dialogue is a driver for attending this conference.