Living Lab Plastics

59% of plastic waste collected in Belgium is still incinerated. Besides recycling, other circular strategies such as reuse and recovery are hardly seen in the plastics sector. Yet, it is precisely these strategies that ensure the highest intrinsic retention of value of an object. The main reasons for these missed opportunities are the wide variety of plastics found in a wide range of applications and diverse compositions, the low price of virgin raw materials and the lack of a tracking mechanism. This living lab builds on the ambition to make recycling the last safety net for plastic waste and to circulate plastic objects, parts and raw materials in short chains. This will maximise cumulative value across the life cycle and preserve raw materials. These changes require profound transitions in the areas of - circular design with plastics; - the local organisation of plastics value chains. 10 use cases form the heart of this living lab. In choosing the cases, the focus is on recovering hard plastics that today go to the incinerator in the highest possible quality. That is where the biggest (social) gains can be made. For each of these cases, we examine why collection or recycling of the plastics has not happened so far, how it can be done in the future and what exactly is needed for other circular strategies to become the standard. To this end, we connect the entire value chain and arrive at new design strategies with plastics and blueprints for new collection, disassembly, sorting and production organisation in short chains. We embed these - in various academic and professional curricula (design and chemistry); - in policy recommendations (OVAM, Flanders Circular working agendas); - in sector consultation (Interafval, Essenscia, HERW!N, Groep Maatwerk); - and through the network of Social Circular Hubs in Flanders.

Keywords:CIRCULAR ECONOMY, ECODESIGN, CIRCULAR MATERIALS

Disciplines:Human-centred design, Systems design, Other product development not elsewhere classified

Project type:Collaboration project