Absolute sustainable plastics: Sweet dream, beautiful nightmare or time to wake up? 7 February, 2024

A discussion on the (un)sustainability of our use of plastics

Mandy Barker

On February 7^th 17:00-18:30 Radboud’s department of Environmental Science hosts an exciting seminar by Prof. André Bardow (ETH Zürich). In a 45 minute talk and discussion session he will discuss the (un)sustainability of our use of plastics. The session is followed by drinks from 17:45 onwards. We invite you all to join and hope to see you there!

Time: February 7^th 17:00-18:30

Location: Huygens building, room HG00.303

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Event description :

Plastics have become a daily companion in our societies due its versatile properties and easy availability. Its success as a product has, however, also led to the triple planetary crisis of habitat loss, plastic pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this talk, we take a technology perspective and ask whether we could establish a product life cycle of plastics within the planetary boundaries. For this purpose, we discuss pathways to move away from fossil-based plastics and how to assess their environmental impacts. In this context, we face the additional dual challenge how to measure the sustainability of chemicals and how to generate the required data. Method will be introduced to predict the life-cycle impacts of chemicals and of the whole industry. These tools will be employed to explore potential pathways and roadblocks towards sustainable plastics.