ACHEMA Congress Session “Circular Economy”

The session deals with the role of polymers in society and how they can be used in a sustainable way. This challenge is not to solve purely scientifically, but is also a political, economic and social issue. This panel brings together presenters from different professional positions for discussion.

After a short introduction by Professor Busch, Ingemar Bühler from Plastics Europe e. V. opened the session. In his presentation he discussed current statistics on polymer recycling as well as the political situation in Germany. Kristina Zentel brought in the scientific perspective with her presentation “Sustainability and Circularity of Polymers – in Academia and Industry” and compared current activities in science and industry. Josef Wünsch from BASF SE and Wolfgang Haider from Borealis AG talked about implementation and challenges of carbon neutrality and circularity in the chemical industry. In this context, Mr. Haider presented the C2PAT project, which aims at a carbon circularity across different industries. Michael Carus, founder of the nova Institute, concluded the lecture series with a presentation on defossilization through the use of alternative carbon sources such as biomass, CO₂ and recycling. Afterwards, a panel discussion with all speakers provided an opportunity for questions and comments from the audience, which was actively used.