In today’s linear economy, products are not manufactured, used, disposed of, and recycled in a sustainable way. This is especially true for plastic products, which are not treated as the valuable resources they can be at the end of their useful lives. This linear economy approach contributes to climate change, waste of resources, and environmental pollution. There are many solutions to the various challenges of such a linear economy - among the most important yet easily overlooked is design.
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Design for circularity can mean that one uses as little material as possible in the sampling process. IMAGIO® CQ, a new digital sampling solution from Covestro, enables customers to do exactly that. |
Although less associated with the chemical industry or the circular economy, design plays a key role in enabling circularity through various means. It offers a huge opportunity for providers of sustainable and high-performance materials like Covestro to bring in their expertise.
“The design phase determines a large part of a product’s environmental impact: From the choice of materials to repairability, from a long and useful product life to recyclability. We therefore can’t understate the topic of design when we want to become fully circular,” explains Dr. Christopher Stillings, Head of Color & Design at the Business Entity Engineering Plastics within Covestro. “As materials experts early in the value chain, we at Covestro sit in the sweet spot to consult our customers and partners on how to use circular design principles when conceiving a product. We want to systematically collaborate with designers to make use of that.“
Gaining momentum
And while product design is not new, a shift is indeed happening - also due to regulators placing increasing emphasis on the topic. For example, the EU is tightening its requirements for environmentally friendly product designs, and approved new rules to make products sold in the EU more reusable, repairable, upgradeable and recyclable. There is also a proposal for a DIN “Method to achieve circular design of products” on its way. In the USA, the Department of Energy is pursuing its “Strategy for Plastics Innovation”, which also includes the factor of “Recyclability by design”. Other regulatory bodies are discussing similar initiatives.
To use that momentum, Covestro offers solutions in several main areas:
• Dematerialization, e.g. by digitalizing sampling processes. Covestro recently announced its new IMAGIO® CQ digital sampling tool for that purpose.
• Design for longevity. This is bread and butter for a high-performance materials manufacturer that provides materials e.g. for products for cars, buildings or the cold chain that have a lifetime of several decades.
• Modular design makes it easier to disassemble products and recycle the parts.
• The use of circular raw materials with a low emission footprint make products made of such material more circular to begin with.
The push for circular design is getting stronger and Covestro is addressing the topic on various fronts. In fact, it has been addressing the topic for decades already and can build on that expertise. The K67, a car entirely made of plastics made for the K-fair back in 1967, is just one example.
