How can a sustainable future with plastic succeed? This question was the focus of our first POLYPROBLEM Camp "New Narratives for the Plastic Transition" in Frankfurt, which brought together experts from civil society and business in Frankfurt.
The POLYPROBLEM Camp will take place on September 30, 2025, in Frankfurt a. M. on the topic of "New Narratives for the Plastics Transition" – free of charge for anyone involved in plastic avoidance, reusable systems, or recycling.
POLY:Solution Lunch: PLASTIC TREATY FUTURES – What should really be in the global plastics agreement
Negotiations for the global plastics agreement are in full swing! What impact do the decisions of the negotiators have on the global volume of plastic waste? Systemiq has modeled different scenarios. Yoni Shiran, Plastics Lead at Systemiq, presented the results of the model and reported on the negotiations.
From fledgling startups to international corporations, from environmental NGOs to federal ministries, the POLYPROBLEM Stakeholder Dialogue aims to bring together the entire spectrum of business, politics, and civil society for a day of joint reflection, tinkering, exchange, and sharing of ideas. This plan was also successful at the third event in 2023.
Negotiations for the global plastics agreement are in full swing! What impact do the decisions of the negotiators have on the global volume of plastic waste? Systemiq has modeled different scenarios. Yoni Shiran, Plastics Lead at Systemiq, presented the results of the model and reported on the negotiations.
Retailers take back plastic packaging, manufacturers collect their own products again: Take-back models are diverse. At the second POLY:Solution Lunch, Felix Weber, Head of Germany at the international recycling company MBA Polymers, reports on such a Europe-wide program in cooperation with a major cosmetics manufacturer.
CO2 emissions trading is considered the most powerful economic instrument for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Can the principle be transferred to plastics production? POLYPROBLEM discussed this with Ansgar Schonlau from Maag GmbH and Dr. Dirk Textor from bvse-Fachverband Kunststoffrecycling at the first POLY:Solution Lunch.
Plastic credits are very popular with companies and private individuals when it comes to offsetting their own plastic footprint. But how honest is the promise of supposed plastic neutrality really, and what contribution can plastic compensation models actually make to combating the plastic crisis?
If almost everything is connected to everything else that threatens the planet, then the answer can only be a system change - the most difficult and complex of all conceivable tasks. In such a situation, scenarios are indispensable. The question "What happens if..." was therefore the guiding question of our POLYPROBLEM Stakeholder Dialogue 2022.
Actually, it sounds quite simple: Anyone who puts packaging into circulation is also responsible for what happens to it after it is used. This is what lies behind the term EXTENDED PRODUCER RESPONSIBILITY (EPR). In Germany and large parts of Europe, it has been largely implemented: Companies that put packaging on the market pay a levy and thus finance the necessary infrastructure for collecting and recycling packaging.
There is no blueprint for a functioning, circular waste management system. Solutions from industrialized countries cannot be exported one-to-one to emerging and developing countries. Rather, cooperation at eye level between municipalities, waste collectors and the local recycling industry must be carefully developed under the respective conditions. Dorothea Wiplinger, Sustainability Manager at Borealis AG and initiator of Project STOP, reports on what needs to be considered in the online seminar.
For two days, the Circular Future Innovation Program invites stakeholders from across the board to digital dialogues, local hubs, as well as learning labs, marketplaces, and networking opportunities relating to the circular transformation of business and society in German-speaking countries.
Everyone agrees that used plastics must be recycled much more consistently. Nevertheless, the proportion of recyclates in global plastics processing is less than 10 percent. Self-commitments by individual industries do not seem to be the solution.
Almost 400 million tons of plastic are currently produced worldwide every year. However, not even ten percent of it consists of recycled material. There are several reasons for this. One of them is an intransparent and inefficiently organized market for recyclates. The Hamburg-based startup CIRPLUS wants to change that - with a global, digital marketplace for recycled plastic.
In the POLYPROBLEM Online Workshop, CIRPLUS founder Christian Schiller analyzes the problems of the faltering interaction between supply and demand and presents his solution.
The time for experiments is running out. If it does not succeed quickly in establishing a systematic and resilient waste management system in the Global South, many other efforts to reduce the input of plastic waste into the environment will be in vain. This is shown not only by our latest report "The Waste of Others", but also by the discussion from past online seminars.
