This Springer Handbook assembles the existing knowledge concerning plastic materials and identifies obstacles and objectives of innovations and technologies that will bring human society closer to the goal of a fully circular economy of plastic materials. Consumers profit everyday from the versatile functionalities of plastic materials, but this diversity also brings a range of challenges: recycling may be costly and laborious, and too many plastic products still end up as waste in the environment.

The handbook offers a source of information, a knowledge base, and inspiration for those aiming to create an economy that paves the road for future generations. The editorial board and invited authors represent international key figures from a broad range of disciplines, including chemistry, engineering, material sciences, logistics, data and information sciences, systems engineering, economy and sustainability as well as disciplines related to culture, art, and design. With its diversity, the book aims to fulfil the huge demand for information on novel technologies and legal approaches in politics, industry and society.

Key topics include:

• Development of biodegradable plastics
• Advanced recycling strategies
• Design for recyclability
• Legal and economic perspectives
• Role of startups and innovative technologies
• Novel business models and business strategies
  By allowing the reader to learn and apply the measures needed for the implementation of a Circular Plastics Economy, the book will be of particular interest to innovators, decision-makers, planners, designers, producers in industry, politics, and society as well as consumers, students, teachers, communicators, journalists, and cultural workers.

Autorentext

Andrea Buettner has been Executive Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV (Germany) since April 2020. Since 2017, she has headed the Chair of Aroma and Smell Research at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany).

She studied Food Chemistry at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and completed her doctorate and habilitation in the field of Aroma Research at the Technical University of Munich (Germany). When she joined the Fraunhofer IVV in 2007, she launched the new Product Performance business unit as well as the Department of Sensory Analytics, today's department Sensory Analytics and Technologies. At the same time, she set up the Aroma Research working group at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, where she was appointed Professor of Aroma Research in 2012. In 2017, she became Deputy Institute Director at the Fraunhofer IVV and a member of the institute's management in 2019.

In her current role, she is, among others, acatech member, member of the Board of the VDI (Association of German Engineers)-Society Materials Engineering, spokesperson of the Fraunhofer Alliance Food, deputy spokesperson of the Fraunhofer Strategic Research Field Bioeconomy, and on the Board of Management of the EU consortium C-PlaNeT (Circular Plastics Network for Training) and of the Fraunhofer Cluster Circular Plastics Economy CCPE.

Her research interests currently focus on improving and maintaining food and product quality, on impurity and contaminant analysis, and on developing analytics and diagnostics in networked and intelligent systems to ensure the highest product quality and consumer acceptance. Andrea Buettner pays special attention to sustainable and resource-saving management as well as to product safety and consumer protection.

Eckhard Weidner held the Chair of Process Technology at the Ruhr University, Bochum and was director of the Fraunhofer Institute UMSICHT (Energy, Environment, Safety Technology) in Oberhausen. As Chemical Engineer, he invented several sustainable processes, like for example tanning of leather intensified by the supercritical CO2, where the environmental footprint was reduced by 90% or more. In 2016 he initiated the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence on Circular Plastics Economy CCPE, which he directed until his retirement in 2022.

More than 100 researchers from 14 Fraunhofer institutes in total are identifying pathways and demonstrate how to transform the linear use of plastics toward a circular way, allowing to responsibly use these unique materials, without spoiling the planets ecosystems. Today the cluster is a highly active network with more than 150 partners from industry, science, politics, and society. Basic research and marketoriented developments complement each other in the cluster to create unique solutions: from circular product design to optimized plastics recycling processes.