C-PlaNeT — Circular Plastics Network for Training

Results in brief

Circular Plastics Network for Training

Bringing plastics into the circular economy is one of the great challenges of our age. (1) Modern societies have to change the way they deal with plastics. The need to reduce the quantities of materials used has compelled the plastics industry to be continuously inventive and create multi-layer applications, modify polymer chemistries, and develop highly functional additives. Unfortunately, this tremendous diversity has a huge downside in the later stages of the product’s life cycle. (2) Recycling plastics is a complex challenge. In Europe, the annual demand for plastics is around 50 million tonnes, of which 25.8 million tonnes end up as waste each year, of which less than 30% is collected for recycling and only 1% is reused as a secondary raw material in new high-end applications. (3) Plastic waste creates huge environmental damage. Far too much waste plastic ends up in the environment. The general public is aware of this, as well as of the associated economic and environmental problems. The primary objective of C-PlaNeT was to demonstrate that a sustainable future for plastics is possible when all the different actors in the value chain collaborate, interact, challenge and complement each other. The 15 Early Stage Researcher (ESR) topics were selected to provide a holistic and interdisciplinary scientific response to the current challenge of making plastics more circular. The 15 ESRs tackled the major research challenges in their tailored PhD research projects, going beyond the current state of the art, achieving the project’s objectives, and so closing the loop for plastics. Each of the ESRs have obtained promising results in their specific field of research during their PhD trajectory and cross-contamination of expertise was achieved through the Network-Wide Training events (NTEs). Of course, given that the transition for plastics to a circular economy is a very complex and multi-level process, many research questions still remain or even originated.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Bringing plastics into the circular economy is one of the great challenges of our age. C-PlaNeT lays the foundations for a New Plastics Economy through a European Joint Doctoral Programme that trains 15 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) to become part of a new generation of scientists, engineers and policy makers for the EU’s circular economy, which must include the design, processing, use and reuse of plastics. C-PlaNeT focuses on excellent international research, training in complementary skills, including entrepreneurship and the translation of research into policy, international as well as cross-organisational and intersectoral mobility, active involvement of the non-academic sector, dissemination, awareness raising and public outreach. As a truly multidisciplinary proposal, C-PlaNeT is well-balanced across different scientific fields of equal importance: chemistry, social sciences, engineering, political sciences, product design and business model development. Moreover, through the 20 non-university partners, C-PlaNeT is anchored across all sectors relevant for the Circularity of Plastics.All ESRs will advance the current state-of-the-art of their respective fields, which together cover the whole life cycle of plastics. To this end, they are supervised by at least 2 promotors from 2 universities and a partner outside university, with whom they will also take an internship. They will participate with each other in a cooperative learning scheme to take their research beyond the borders of their own respective disciplines and gain a holistic appreciation for the complex issue of Plastics in a Circular Economy. As such C-Planet has the ambition to be a game changer for the circularity of plastics as a material resource, based on and excellent and multidisciplinary research and training programme.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

UNIVERSITEIT GENT · GentCoordinatorBelgium
ARISTOTELIO PANEPISTIMIO THESSALONIKIS · THESSALONIKIGreece
BRANDENBURGISCHE TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT COTTBUS-SENFTENBERG · CottbusGermany
DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET · Kongens LyngbyDenmark
FRIEDRICH-ALEXANDER-UNIVERSITAET ERLANGEN-NUERNBERG · ErlangenGermany
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN · LeuvenBelgium
MONTANUNIVERSITAET LEOBEN · LeobenAustria
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT BERLIN · BerlinGermany
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN · EindhovenNetherlands

C-PlaNeT · Circular Plastics Network for Training

Results in brief

Circular Plastics Network for Training

Project objective

Participants

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