Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

Plastic cosumption. 12 million tons. In Germay. Per year.

The production of plastics releases 33 million tons* of CO₂ in Germany every year. At the same time, around 6.3 million metric tons of waste containing plastics are produced in this country every year, 53 percent of which is thermally recycled and 47 percent of which is recycled. This has a dramatic impact on our environment. In the Fraunhofer lighthouse project "Waste4Future", eight Fraunhofer Institutes are pooling their expertise and working on closing the plastics cycle by testing new recycling methods and producing high-quality raw materials. The aim is to turn today's waste into tomorrow's green resource, thereby reducing industry's dependence on imported primary carbon resources such as crude oil and natural gas.

On this website you will find our solutions to realize our vision.

*from an estimate based on internal data

Vision

Completely closed carbon cycle in the plastics industry through the use of mechanical and chemical recycling methods

Mission

Development, demonstration and evaluation of a holistic, entropy-based approach to transform the current process-led recycling chain into a material-oriented cycle