Citizens' Campus: Plastics in the Circular Economy - An Assessment

Prof. Dr. Florian Puch| TU Ilmenau
 

It is impossible to imagine our everyday life without plastics and we encounter them in all areas of our lives. Be it food packaging, the car or an electrical appliance, everywhere we find components made of plastic. But we are also familiar with the images of plastic waste in the oceans or on huge landfills in other parts of the world. At the same time, in Germany we talk about recycling rates for plastics of over 99%. How does this fit together? Where do we really stand?

The lecture will shed light on these questions and give an overview of plastics in the different stages of their cycle, starting with production, processing and use of plastics and ending with recycling options. In addition, an assessment of the challenges and prospects will be provided.

The topic of resource efficiency is being addressed by the Department of Plastics Technology at TU Ilmenau in current research projects with industrial partners on the avoidance of rejects in injection molding processes using artificial intelligence and on lightweight construction. The topic of recycling management is being addressed in current research proposals and is increasingly being incorporated into teaching.

Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Florian Puch was appointed in March 2021 to the joint professorship of the Thuringian Institute for Textile and Plastics Research e.V. Rudolstadt, an affiliated institute of the TU Ilmenau, where he is Scientific Director, and the TU Ilmenau, where he heads the Plastics Technology Group.