What happens to a dishwasher’s plastic components at the end of the appliance’s life? How can we recover these valuable materials and give them a new purpose? As part of its continuing goal to create sustainable, value-added customer solutions, Evonik has set out to find answers to these important questions. Searious Business helped them find solutions to this recycling challenge.

Sometimes, working in sustainability, you get hit with challenging times, and last week was a political doozy. It began with an anticlimactic return from Kenya, followed by the disappointing dilution of the European Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), a surprising U-turn on pesticide control in the Green Deal, and ended with a ‘less-than-favourable’ result in the Dutch general elections. Despite these troubling developments, we don’t have the luxury of resting in the corner, licking our wounds. We must cling to the positive and get ready for the next round. On returning from INC-3, our CEO Willemijn Peeters explores the nuanced dynamics of the negotiations – the stormy nights but also the sun shining through the clouds.

Debating into the dead of night – the intergovernmental negotiating committee of over 170 country delegates and observers kept many of us at the edge of our seats. After all, there is a lot at stake: like the climate and the biodiversity crises, plastic pollution is now also officially a planetary crisis. A UN Treaty on Plastics will have the ability to change this and can have a profound impact on the way we produce and consume plastics. Willemijn Peeters gives her take on negotiations so far.