starts in your head

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is an indispensable plastic for our modern society, commonly used for beverage and food packaging. Due to its characteristics like strength, resistance, lightweight, and clarity, the use of PET has increased exponentially since 1990. Nowadays, more than 30.5 million metric tons of PET are produced per year all around the world. In Mexico, PetStar has revolutionized the plastics industry by designing an innovative circular process around PET and the beverage sector.

In Morelia, a Mexican city, there is a waste museum dedicated to creating social awareness of waste management.

On the campus of the Technical University of Kaiserslautern in Pirmasens, a pavilion has been built in the beginning of 2021, using almost exclusively reclaimed building materials. The important innovation is that the reprocessed building materials are used in the same way as the original building material, as in precast concrete elements, for example, and no longer as inferior fillers. One can therefore speak of reuse - as opposed to recycling.

A new system for waste collection and separation was implemented in Istanbul which should support people in need, clean the streets and gain value out of recyclable materials.

Developing Business Models in Sheltered Container Spots for a Decentralized Waste Handling by Involving All Participants

Raising awareness for waste separation and environment among the population is the goal of our aesthetic and sheltered mini-recycling centers

In Germany every year an unbelievable amount of 100 million pieces of furniture is sorted out, most of which are sent to bulky waste and almost always end up getting burnt. This happens, although many goods are still in a good condition. The predominantly unnecessary disposal of waste mainly applies to private furniture, but also includes office and school equipment.

Every year a high number of crutches is disposed of in Germany, as the health system intends them for single use only. Meanwhile, many people in the global South suffer from a lack of medical supplies. Especially in war countries, the quality of life of many wounded people could be significantly improved through functioning prosthesis, wheelchairs, and crutches.

The “pay-as-you-throw” (PAYT) scheme is an economic instrument for waste management that applies the “polluter pays” principle by charging the inhabitants of municipalities according to the amount of residual, organic, and bulky waste they send for third-party waste management

Kolics Company Ltd. (KoliKo wear) is a social enterprise that seeks to support skilled and opportunity seeking youth to produce innovative products which are environmentally friendly.

AWM's information campaign intended to draw Munich's attention to the plastic problem and to motivate people to avoid such waste.

The WEEE Centre, Nairobi Kenya offers recycling services for ICT waste to the general public, business, learning institutions, government and NGOs in East Africa working closely with social enterprise Close the Gap project. The increasing amount of E-waste has created a need to recycle them in an environment-friendly way and there are opportunities to reuse the ICT products to bridge technological gaps in low-income countries. Thus WEEE Centre works on the treatment of collected ICT waste by creating possibilities of reusing, dismantling and sourcing of downstream management in environmental compliance and has safely handled more than 10,000 tonnes of e-waste since inception.

Research project carried out by ISWA, University Stuttgart

Winner of the EUROCITIES Awards 2017 in the categorie "cooperation".