Circular economy: How can we take nature as a model?

What is no longer needed ends up in the trash – humanity has been living by this principle for some time now. How could we take nature as a model and rediscover the “origin to origin” approach?

On Monday, October 2, a Start me up Monday on the topic of “Circular Economy” will take place in the ballroom of the FH Technikum Wien starting at 5 pm.

In the run-up to the event, we asked Martina Ortbauer (head of the Master Ecotoxicology & Environmental Management program) a few questions about the topic.

What does “cradle to grave” mean? And how difficult is it for humanity to move from this principle to “cradle to cradle”?
Martina Ortbauer: Cradle to grave is a linear approach in which products are disposed of as waste in landfills or thermally recycled after use. This is an economic method that cannot be operated in the long term, as it always requires new resources and raw materials for production, which are simply finite on earth. Therefore, the linear approach inevitably leads to losses for future generations.

Cradle to cradle describes a circular economy in which products are designed in advance so that the materials or ingredients can be returned to the cycle from which they were once taken. This can reduce energy, emissions and also costs. The closed-loop principle also focuses on closing industrial material cycles.

What is there to consider beforehand?
Martina Ortbauer: Basically, waste avoidance takes precedence over reuse and recycling. And also with recycling, the life cycle assessment plays a decisive role for the selection of the appropriate recycling method. However, the advantage of recycling existing products is that hazardous or already banned substances can be removed again. “Safe and Sustainable by Design” means considering and taking into account possible risks to health and environmental impacts in advance when designing products.

This requires societal development, a strategy and a commitment to a way of life or a use of resources that makes demands on the natural basis of life only to the extent that it can regenerate, and a decoupling of economic growth from certain materials.

Thomas Jakl, BMK “Austria’s Circular Economy Strategy”, will speak about circular thinking as a perspective in the chemical industry at our Start me up Monday.

Would the goal of “100 percent recycling” for humans be realistic at some point? Or is it even unavoidable that new, non-renewable resources will always have to be used for some areas?
Martina Ortbauer: The primary goal is always to minimize waste. And then the goal is that materials can be reused without any loss of quality or that the highest possible value of products, materials and resources is retained. But often this is not yet the case – downcycling means reuse with loss of quality. Raw materials from production and consumer waste must be recovered and reused. This requires 1. more efficiency, i.e. the reduction of resource input per manufactured unit and 2. consistency, the use of biodegradable materials and the avoidance, elimination and/or substitution of non-renewable resources by renewable ones.

Business, science and technology bring not only great opportunities but also new risks (unintentionally as a side effect, so to speak). New technologies also bring new ethical and social issues, risks often only become apparent during application or further development. There is not always a 100% solution, but a careful weighing of “this is better than that.”

Which technical innovations could bring improvements in the field of recycling in the foreseeable future?

Martina Ortbauer: There are two possibilities for this: New design & new recycling methods. For example, in the pulp or paper industry and also in wide areas of the textile industry, materials based on cellulose are used, which enables sustainable production and reprocessing of materials based on biomolecules (biomass).

At Start me up Monday we will hear a presentation on “Green Chemistry”, Cellulose Chemistry – by Christian Schimper (Managing Director – Acticell GmbH).

Another important aspect is plastics recycling: the rate for recycling plastic packaging waste in Austria is currently 25% – according to EU targets, a recycling rate of 55% must be achieved by 2030. Technical difficulties in plastic recycling arise from the large variety of materials, quality losses during recycling and the fact that recycling is more lucrative when the oil price is high than when it is low. Microplastics produced in the process are an additional environmental hazard.

In mechanical recycling of plastic waste, it is shredded, the granules are melted down and reprocessed’. As a result, the composition of the macromolecules of the old plastic remains. Chemical recycling means converting the plastic polymers into their monomers or basic chemical building blocks or base chemicals. This was long considered uneconomical, but is being reconsidered by BASF, for example.

In EU chemical policy, chemistry plays a major role in the transition, especially in the energy transition. Not only technology, but also better logistics, new business models and less “toxic lobbying of big companies in Brussels” would be important.

More about this at the event on October 2, 2023 at the FH Technikum, where Martina Ortbauer and experts from GreenTec Campus Korneuburg and Blue Planet Ecosystems will be present:

https://www.technikum-wien.at/events/start-me-up-monday-okotoxikologie/