PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2019

TOP TALK PET planet Insider Vol. 20 No. 10/19 www.petpla.net 9 “The challenges for the plastics industry are varied” In the run up to the K’ trade fair in Düsseldorf, excitement is in the air in the plastics indus- try. The topics of sustainable production and recycling are on everyone’s lips and they are high up on the K trade fair agenda this year. PETplanet spoke to Stefan Bock, CEO and founder of company ReduPET GmbH and an old hand in the field of blow moulding and preform injection moulding. He shared his strategy for conscious production and discussed the future challenges for the PET sector. PETplanet: You have worked in the plastics industry for over 30 years. Plastic has never before been so con- troversially discussed in society. What do you make of this discussion? Are there aspects that you think are being missed? Stefan Bock: The current discus- sion is crucial to the survival of the plastics industry. Of course, we all know that we cannot continue like this with a material that is so important to our living standards. This means that the pressure building up from the current discussions is a driver for rethinking the industry and becoming more innovative and responsible. First and foremost I think what is missing is legislators in more countries adopting sensible and well thought out laws. For example, as far as I know, plastic waste from Germany is exported by ship. Once the plastic is loaded onto the ship, it is considered in Germany to be recycled, even if it is then dis- posed of improperly in Asia. The consumers themselves must have a much greater awareness of plastic as a recyclable material and act accordingly, whether voluntarily or through incentives or legal enforce- ment. There is a clear need for global action here. PETplanet: In your opinion, what does this discussion hold in terms of effects on the plastics industry and the PET industry in particular? Stefan Bock: Plastic is regarded more critically and so is receiving significantly more attention and is unfortunately getting a negative repu- tation. This pulls plastic products into the focus and calls them into ques- tion, which is surely a positive effect. Basically, awareness is being raised around the world; it is just a shame that this is often done in a sensa- tional and therefore media-attracting way instead of it being construc- tively explained and handled. This is urgently needed - wake up calls are no longer enough. Especially in my sector, the bever- age industry, we can see that con- tainers have become increasingly “convenient”, i.e. smaller. This means that more and more plastic is used. This also happens in hot countries, where these small packages bear no relation to people’s needs. Meanwhile, packages are so small – and there- fore so large in proportion to their content – that they now have to have a multilayer construction to increase the barrier effect. This means that the valuable recyclable PET material is now contaminated with an incompat- ible barrier material and this makes recycling much more difficult. Surely it would be more appropriate to divert discussion to these absurd develop- ments that are no longer in keeping with the times and to ask ourselves why the EU is clutching at plastic straws - in the face of these absurdi- ties. PETplanet: You founded ReduPET GmbH two years ago. What was the deciding reason for this? Stefan Bock: As you said, I have been working in the plastics indus- try for over 30 years, primarily in the packaging industry. Most of the time, I was employed in engineering but I was also able to make a contribution around the world in production opera- tions for different applications and in different cultures and to get to know and assess these. Because of mass production, the plastic industry is extremely resource intensive in terms of both energy and raw materials. As already mentioned, the industry works with narrow margins, meaning that operating staff are not always well educated or do not have deeply held expertise to understand the processes in great detail – robust production with good products is the objective. Often, it is not recognised that the machines are not running efficiently and both raw materials and energy are wasted unknowingly in huge quantities. Once I had settled on the idea of acting in a resource-friendly way in my own environment, especially at home, I could see in my work environment a much greater potential and also there- fore the responsibility to support the plastic processing industry in saving energy and raw material resources. At that time, I was not in a posi- tion to act upon these convictions Stefan Bock, CEO and founder of ReduPET GmbH, was previously with Bekum, Krupp Kautex and SIG for ISBM Systems and Netstal. by Heike Fischer