A large proportion of the consumer goods and articles of daily use are made from petroleum-based plastics. In Germany alone, around six million tons of plastic waste are produced every year. Only slightly less than half of this is recycled, while the remaining 50 percent or so is sent for energy recovery.
When the waste is incinerated, the greenhouse gasCO2 is released. From a climate and environmental protection perspective, it is therefore important to keep more plastics in the cycle. In the Waste4Future flagship project, eight Fraunhofer Institutes are developing new concepts and processes to significantly increase the mechanical recycling of plastics. We will be reporting on this project in a detailed article in the next issue of "Galvanotechnik" (issue 4/2024).
