Plastics Unwrapped

The Asia Pacific region tends to dominate the rankings and headlines in coverage surrounding global plastic waste. But the pace of innovation and change in plastics production, consumption and waste in the region has been faster than you think, led by China. In this episode Junice Yeo, Executive Director at Eco-Business, discusses the real challenges facing Asia’s disparate countries and investments in policies to address the region’s varying degrees of waste challenges. Thomas Luedi, Senior Partner at Bain & Company, and Kodak Xiao, Global Sustainability Director for the Packaging and Specialty Plastics business at Dow, add industry perspective on balancing the rising production of recycling capacities, increasing patent-filing rates in the region for innovations, and Asia-Pacific's new hyper-aware consumer.  Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

From compostable fashion developed in the Middle East to simplifying waste into feedstock in Switzerland to reduce fossil fuels in plastics, entrepreneurs David Roubach and Felix Bobbink share their journey of being disrupters in an industry grappling with waste management. But as Dow Global Business Director Christophe Marché explains, scaling disruptive solutions will require incumbent industry leaders to take risks, invest in disrupters and pivot their business models. University of California, Berkeley professor Dr. Ting Xu shares how it will also require the industry to look into the research and science behind scalable solutions. Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

In Recycling and Beyond Part 2, Haley Lowry, Global Sustainability Director at Dow, and Jeroen Verhoeven, Vice President of Value Chain Development at Neste, discuss the quiet industry collaborations that are helping companies break out of their silos to achieve their sustainability targets. We explore the potential behind this collaborative approach in rebalancing carbon and circularity challenges the industry is facing and what solutions could comprise disruptive mechanical and advanced recycling business models.We take a look at how a collaborative approach can allow companies to keep each other honest in their sustainability efforts, scale technologies and create the right policy and regulatory frameworks to help the industry redefine the inputs used to make plastics, including fossil fuels. Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

In Recycling and Beyond Part 1, we explore the challenges of collecting and sorting plastic waste, and the necessity to build infrastructure while balancing the needs of communities dealing with waste. Featuring global waste management expert, author and technical editor of UNEP’s Global Waste Management Outlook 2, Zoë Lenkiewicz, and Regional Director in Africa for ChildFund International, Chege Ngugi, this episode dives into how children and communities in Africa are at the frontline of plastic waste and its mismanagement and what steps are being taken by public, private and civil society stakeholders to ensure plastic waste becomes a more circular solution for these communities. Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

In part two of our design thinking discussion, we delve into how design can impact a country and a company's climate goals, as up to 80% percent of a product's lifetime emissions are determined by decisions made at the design stage. With guests Rosalie McMillan, Co-founder of Smile Plastics, and Daniella Souza Miranda, Global Marketing Director at Dow, we explore how large and small businesses are implementing design thinking into their core strategies. Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

In part one of Design Thinking Plastics, we explore the history of how designers helped plastic become a core part of modern life.  Tony Chambers, Founder of TC & Friends and former editor-in-chief of Wallpaper, delves into how design thinking is reimagining the role of plastics and how designers are pivoting to give a new life to plastics.  From the role of producers and their responsibility to hyper-aware consumers and their perception of plastics, Tony explores how design thinking from the very outset of a product's life cycle can help address plastic waste and ensure its future in a circular world.  Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

A sustainable future requires the creation of a circular economy for plastic, and we must build systems with decarbonisation at the core.In Episode #4 of Plastics Unwrapped, we explored how advanced recycling technologies will play a key role in accelerating a circular economy for plastic. In this episode, we take it a step further and address how this process can help us decarbonise operations. We sat down with Oliver Borek from Mura, a world leader in advanced recycling technology, Virginia Janssens, the Managing Director for Plastics Europe, and Marc van den Biggelaar, Sustainability Director at Dow, to discuss what’s needed to create a circular economy for plastics, how we're scaling advanced recycling, and considerations for how the industry can reach net zero. Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

While the industry agrees that there’s a need to decarbonize plastics, is a comparison to coal fair? In this episode, Dow’s Carolina Gregorio is in discussion with David Carroll of Plastics Europe and David Croft of Reckitt as they explore the journey the plastics industry needs to take to reach net zero emissions, and how the smallest of shifts in consumer behaviour can drastically decrease the amount of virgin plastics needed to make packaging. Key discussion points:Discussion of the learnings from the Reshaping Plastics study. (08:00)Dow’s investment in decarbonization and reaching net zero (17:22)The drive from consumers for more recyclable products and plastic recycling schemes (23:00) Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

This episode explores the challenges faced by Africa’s informal waste sector, with a focus on the partnerships helping to improve the continent’s plastics value chain to enable the scaling of advanced recycling solutions. Adwoa Coleman is joined by Vivien Luk, Executive Director of non-profit organization WORK, and Cordie Aziz-Nash, founder of Environment 360, for this thought-provoking discussion. The panel touch on the effects of COVID-19 on plastics processing chains in Africa and describe the changes needed to transform the continent’s informal waste sector. Key discussion points: Defining what climate justice means (07:47)The challenges faced by Africa’s plastics value chain (12:24)The role of the private sector in implementing change (28:08) Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

This episode explores the role of design in enabling a circular economy for plastics, by delving into the challenges and opportunities of scaling designing for recycling solutions. Julie Zaniewski is joined in this conversation by Jay Fitzgerald from the US Department of Energy and Kathleen Liang from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. The panel discusses the role of individual businesses in advancing plastics recycling and set out their own company goals, including objectives for improving waste management, reducing greenhouse gases, and increasing the recyclability of products. Key discussion points: Dow’s commitment to ensuring all products sold into packaging applications will be recyclable by 2035 (04:00)The Department of Energy’s 2030 goals on energy saving, end of life solutions, and the reduction of greenhouse gases (29:10)US businesses focus on waste management (28:45) Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

This episode delves into the need to reduce CO2 emissions in the plastics industry and how Dow is working towards producing circular plastics with a lower CO2 footprint. Marco Ten Bruggencate is joined by Howard Chase and Erika Sánchez Garrido, from Dow, and Kaj Embren, a sustainable development expert. They discuss why the decade between 2020 to 2030 is crucial in terms climate protection and how ‘The Greta effect’ has caused public consciousness around CO2 levels to grow, sparking a rise in demand for industry action. Key discussion points include: Dow's partnership with Shell to transform furnaces and electrify energy (07:04-07:30)How The EU Green deal is encouraging and enabling innovation (10:36-11:02)The need for education to meet the low carbon economy goals (27:44 – 28:11) Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

In this episode, Dow’s Director of EU Affairs, Dennis Kredler, is joined by Plastic Europe’s Director of External Affairs, David Carroll, to discuss the EU’s Green Deal and what it means for the plastics industry. Dennis and David discuss the content and ambitions of the Green Deal, the opportunities and challenges it presents for the plastic industry and what actions organisations such as Dow are taking to ensure they meet the Green Deal’s goal of circularity and climate neutrality by 2050. Host: Maithreyi Seetharaman Show Producer: Lisa Desai  Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of Noise Communications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, Teneo Artwork: Dow Creative Element

Tune in to Episode 5 of Plastics Unwrapped to hear an open discussion on the opportunities and challenges we face with plastic waste in Africa and an exploration into how key collaborations are shifting the dial on collecting, sorting and recycling rates to build an effective circular economy. Adwoa Coleman, Africa Sustainability & Advocacy Manager from Dow’s Plastics business, joins Arese Lucia Onaghise, Executive Secretary at The Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA) and Keiran Smith, CEO and Co-Founder of recycling company, Mr. Green Africa, to talk about the landscape for plastics on the continent. Host: Maithreyi Seetharaman Show Producer: Lisa Desai  Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of Noise Communications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, Teneo Artwork: Dow Creative Element

In this episode, Carsten Larsen, Dow’s Commercial Director for Recycling in EMEA & APAC is  joined by Iain Gulland, CEO of Zero Waste Scotland, and Sirt Mellema, CEO of Fuenix Ecogy Group, to discuss ‘game-changing’ advanced recycling technology. Advanced recycling takes hard-to-recycle, mixed plastic waste and breaks it down into its basic chemical elements – allowing waste to become infinitely recyclable. The panel look at what this technology means for both industry and consumers.Key discussion points include:What is advanced or feedstock recycling ?How to recycle plastics that were previously unrecyclable.Advanced recycling in a circular economy. Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

Why is it so difficult to recycle plastics? What is the difference between recyclable and recycled? Why do recycling rates change so drastically from country to country and even street to street? Dow's Romain Cazenave, Marketing Director for Packaging & Specialty Plastics in EMEA, and Karin Katzer, Marketing Director in EMEA, shed light on this topic and explain how plastic manufacturers can create products that are easier to recycle as well as support recycling systems. They are joined by Krzysztof Krajewski, Director of Packaging Sustainability at RB, one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies.Key discussion points include:Why recycling rates differ from so much between areasThe role of plastics manufacturers in creating products that are easier to recycle, as well as supporting recycling. Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

Dow's Thomas Reutter, Product Director for Packaging & Specialty Plastics in EMEA, and Panu Routasalo, Vice President at UPM Biofuels, talk about market growth for renewable feedstocks and how this fits with the industry’s plans to reduce its carbon emissions. They discuss why approaches like mass balance are important in supporting market growth for bioplastics, as well as the industry's role in ensuring the growth of renewable feedstocks and the need to continue working together with others to find more sustainable solutions.Key discussion points include: What are renewable feedstocks?Potential challenges of feedstocks as an industry solution (8:28 - 8:47) Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element

Dow’s  Marco ten Bruggencate, Commercial Vice President for Packaging & Specialty Plastics in EMEA, and Carsten Larsen, Commercial Director for Plastic Recycling in EMEA, are joined by Jim McClelland, Editor of SustMeme magazine, to discuss ‘Emotion versus Science’ and how that plays out in today’s debate around plastics. Our guests discuss how we can balance the emotional response we all feel when seeing waste, with a logical, scientific approach when it comes to choosing materials.Key discussion points include: Whether the industry is doing enough to combat the negative (20:58-21:21)How we can demonstrate the benefits of circular plastic (10:42-11:19)The role of the value chain (8:13-8:41) Host: Maithreyi SeetharamanShow Producer: Lisa Desai Sound Production: PhiLipp Schweidler, Department of NoiseCommunications Advisor: Jonny West-Symes, TeneoArtwork: Dow Creative Element