Circular Economy in the Plastics Sector

Material recovery rates for many plastics are still below their potential even though plastic recyclates are often cheaper than virgin material. Reasons for this can be located in the market structure, information gaps, and lack of process knowledge among many other factors.

Against this background, members of the Wuppertal Institute's Circular Economy Research Unit together with discussants from the Jheronimus Academy of Data Science (JADS), the Université de Luxembourg, WIN Emscher Lippe, Oost N.V., and the SKZ - KFE gGmbH met in 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, on 21 June for a workshop, organised by the Wuppertal Institute and JADS.

Within the scope of the workshop, the leading question was how digital technologies and Data Science can be utilised to improve the aforementioned situation as the participants deem the developments related to the Digital Transformation as specifically promising in this regard. The participants will now test and implement the approaches together with mainly small and medium-sized companies from the plastics and waste industry by developing a project in the EU's Interreg framework.