Sustainability back

Get Plastic Done?

Get Plastic Done?
Photo: © Max Arens

There have already been five Cradle to Cradle conferences in Germany in recent years. Now she finally came to Berlin. It was about packaging of the future, recycling management, improving the world. The C2C organizers had been looking for the big stage for this and found it - in the Urania in Schöneberg. We were there as media partners and gathered the most important voices.
 

Text Boris Messing

 

It was only a few months ago that they had themselves renovated their NGO headquarters in the clunky prefabricated concrete slab building in Berlin Mitte according to the cradle-to-cradle principle. From carpeting to paint, windows and plaster, everything is free of pollutants and one hundred percent recyclable. Last weekend, the Cradle to Cradle Association held its first C2C conference at the Urania in Berlin. Participants from politics, business and civil society discussed how a climate-friendly and resource-saving economy could look like in the future.

Already the foyer of the Urania was crowded with people who came to fetch or hand in their jackets and coats. Bela B, drummer in the band "Die Ärzte", stood around the entrance with people from the C2C team and discussed his performance. But Bela B, who is a member of the advisory board of the C2C conference, was not the only celebrity among the speakers. TV chef Sarah Wiener, Federal Minister for the Environment Svenja Schulze and C2C inventor Michael Braungart were also in on the act. Because of the colourful variety of speakers and the nonchalant atmosphere, the C2C organisers also referred to the two-day conference at the Urania as a festival - it was intended to emphasise the entertaining character of the event.

What was that about? The Cradle to Cradle concept was developed in the 1990s by the same German chemist Michael Braungart and the American architect William McDonough. It stands for a form of production in which all products can be returned to a closed biological or technical cycle. This saves energy and resources. C2C products can be clothes, shoes or toothbrushes, which after wear and tear become humus and thus flow back into nature as nutrients. Or also office chairs, pens, bicycles or technical equipment that can be dismantled into their individual parts and recycled in another form. In both cases waste is avoided and the environment is protected.

One thing became clear at the event: the main problem is the mountains of packaging, waste that goes around the world every second. Supermarkets, electrical store chains, department stores - no one is exempt, everyone is responsible, because everywhere packaging made of plastic, styrofoam and other non-recyclable materials piles up into gigantic mountains of waste. Or they end up in the sea. An estimated 4.8 to 12.7 million tons of plastic waste land in the oceans every year. That is equivalent to one truckload per minute. In total, some 80 million tons have accumulated in the oceans of the world. Between California and Hawaii alone there is a plastic waste island that is more than four times the size of Germany - the so-called 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch'. And some of this garbage is packaging.

This problem will continue to be difficult to control in the future, if only because international regulations are needed, which are not currently emerging. Most of today's packaging contains a large number of elements that cannot be separated. New packaging is needed. On Friday a panel in the great hall of the Urania dealt with the topic "Packaging of the future". In a relaxed atmosphere, the audience listened to the contributions to the discussion by Toni Hofreiter (Green party), Professor Hans-Josef Endres from the University of Hanover and representatives of the economy. The question was: How can packaging be redesigned, what does the future of packaging look like? Like before a highly anticipated movie premiere, people sat on their bright red chairs sloping down towards the stage. Many also sat in the corridors to the right and left because they could no longer find any space. One may assume that ten years ago the subject of packaging would not have attracted so many people behind the oven (and oven, that's just another problem). But today is not ten years ago: the topics of environment and sustainability have become pares inter pares for the large commercial enterprises, alongside pure profit orientation. But they are still acting timidly. But the packaging of the future is on the advance, as the panel tried to show.

Photos: © Max Arens / CR2

One example is the company FRoSTA. It puts its frozen products entirely on paper. They are the first frozen food brand ever to succeed in creating a biodegradable packaging, for which they were awarded the German Packaging Prize in 2016. In the words of Marketing Director Torsten Matthias: "Some people are separating from the EU, we are separating from plastic". In doing so, they have also inspired other companies that want to part with plastic packaging completely in the long term. Rittersport, for example. They have developed a prototype of paper packaging that is currently being evaluated by customers. After all, it's not only environmental compatibility that plays a role, but also aesthetics and design.

Another insight: solutions for packaging of the future do not necessarily have to be based on biodegradable products alone. Plastics can also be recycled, albeit to a limited extent, into a technical cycle. Anyone who goes shopping in a supermarket is very likely to have encountered them before: the green plastic crates from IFCO, in which the fruit and vegetables are stored. These containers are used up to 120 times. They circulate in a continuous cycle from the manufacturer to the supermarket and back again. Afterwards, the worn container is ground into granulate and processed into a new container. This technology reduces CO2 emissions by up to 60 percent.

Professor Hans-Josef Endres, an expert in recycling management and plastic products, is convinced that C2C packaging will become more common in the future. However, he complained that there is a lack of "lighthouses" such as the companies FRoSTA or IFCO. "You know what you should do, but you don't do it." Manufacturers would have to be obliged to dispose of packaging, but a clear political framework is needed for this. Toni Hofreiter of the Green party would prefer to draw this up himself. More and more people welcome an environmentally friendly recycling economy, said Hofreiter in his usual dry manner. That is true, one thought. But when the Green party was in power, they did not manage to create a political framework for a circular economy. But then Toni was also a doctoral student.

Category: Specials

rss

Also a good read

close
close

Cookie-Policy

We use cookies to provide the best website experience for you. By clicking on "Accept tracking" you agree to this. You can change the settings or reject the processing under "Manage Cookies setup". You can access the cookie settings again at any time in the footer.
Privacy | Imprint

Cookie-Policy

We use cookies to provide the best website experience for you. By clicking on "Accept tracking" you agree to this. You can change the settings or reject the processing under "Manage Cookies setup". You can access the cookie settings again at any time in the footer.

Privacy | Imprint