The production of plastics makes up 3.4% of global CO2 emissions. Over 390 million tons of plastic waste are produced every year. In order to reduce CO2 emissions in the plastics industry, the «Towards a NetZero Plastics Industry» initiative is adopting a holistic approach along the entire value chain. Digital solutions play a pivotal role: As part of the project, the team will set up an online platform which will serve as an innovation ecosystem for the plastics industry. The solutions developed as part of the Innosuisse research project will be published on this platform so that they can be disseminated throughout and implemented in the industry. In addition to digital approaches, the project is also dedicated to utilizing innovative materials to drive systemic change in the plastics industry. By pooling their expertise, the research partners are working together to bring about sustainable change in the plastics industry.
One of the sub-projects to be presented on the online platform is the development of an «eco-design tool». This tool should support polymer processors in product design. It indicates how a specific product must be designed to cut material consumption, minimize waste, increase the proportion of sustainable materials, and make the product recyclable.
As a partner with industry experience, our Meraxis team leverages its expertise and network in the plastics processing industry. Michael Grysczyk, Director Digital & Disruptive Business at Meraxis, emphasizes: «Together with our project partners, we are developing concepts for how such tools can generate added value for as many companies in the industry as possible and how they can be made available in the best possible way. We are also working on developing suitable business models, marketing strategies and everything else that comes with it. In a first step, we validate the approaches in practice, i.e. with the project partners as well as our customers.»
The project is slated to run for four years and is worth a total of CHF 8 million. The interdisciplinary project team comprises universities, plastics producers and processors or start-ups. They include the University of St. Gallen HSG and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH in Zurich. Meraxis is the only plastics distributor involved. The knowledge acquired will be directly implemented by the 18 participating companies in new value chains and production processes – initially on the Swiss market.
You can find out more about the project at: https://zeropol.ch/
Find out more about digitization at Meraxis at Digitalization | Meraxis Group (meraxis-group.com).
