Cycle of life
Did you know that linear economies with all their mountains of waste at the end of the often very short useful life of products are an invention of us humans? One that we don’t have to be proud of, though … quite the opposite. Our mother earth does not know such a thing. It does not produce waste, but everything is subject to a natural cycle.
Wouldn’t it be high time to learn from nature? To stop believing that resources are infinite and energy is a given? Current events make us painfully aware of this.
One way in the right direction is to think about how we can make waste usable again as raw materials and thus, so to speak, close the loop again. For those who would like to take a more fundamental look at this topic, I recommend the great documentary “Cycle of Life” on Arte TV: https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/100811-000-A/kreislauf-des-lebens/
At Filzwieser, we have been working for some time on how we can produce valuable technical films again from KU waste. Anyone who thinks this is primarily a technical challenge about upcycling waste and then extruding it is only looking at a fraction of the whole issue.
The challenge is rather to consider the entire process chain from development, production, and use to the end of a product’s life cycle. It takes a completely different and new mindset to look at the value chain and especially the required product features themselves. The focus should no longer be on technical perfection, but rather on the question of how we can make a product recyclable and what properties does it really need? What can we do without if the ability to circulate requires it? I am thinking here, for example, of questioning sensible optical claims. So it may seem obvious to us that a surface film for skis has a top surface without defects … that’s nice to look at in the store. But what happens when we use the product for the first time? I don’t want to imagine the endless resources we waste because we strive for perfection and don’t ask “what does it really take”?
We are “plastic solution finders”. As plastic solution finders, we think in alternatives and do not shy away from ambiguous and contradictory questions. A film made from secondary raw materials is not a “cheap recycling film” … no, it is rather a paradigm shift that requires completely new ways of thinking. If you are honestly willing to do so, we would be happy to discuss your task in this regard. Together, we can make our economies a little more circular.
Finally, I would like to give an example of a relatively complex project that has already been implemented. Printed and subsequently back-molded PC films should be made recyclable. In a joint project, accompanied by the Upper Austrian KU Cluster, it has been possible to make printed films usable again. More info at: https://www.kunststoff-cluster.at/news-presse/detail/news/recycling-neu-designt