We have grown up in an environment where plastic, once used, is considered waste. This burden has prevented generations of consumers and industries from capturing the economic benefits of plastic. With Additive Manufacturing and circular economy at the top of Europe’s agenda, waste that was considered a burden before has now turned into gold. The only thing is that it’s up to each company to find the right way to make it glitter. We asked difficult questions to Evonik’s Dominic Störkle to understand their strategy.
Why specialty chemicals company Evonik, you may ask? Because I strongly believe that a circular economy strategy for 3D printed plastics starts with material. More importantly, material producers have the right expertise and can leverage the right resources to put in place a circular economy or a system that avoids waste and limits resource consumption by recirculating existing materials. Such circularity would mean recapturing and reusing existing polymers when and where possible, as well as controlling or restricting the development of new, virgin materials made from non-renewable fossil fuels.
To do so, material producers have to understand the specific market they operate in. Indeed, each material producer will have unique objectives when it comes to circular economy. (Read more)
