REGAIN

The extensive use of plastic packaging paired with their typically short lifetime leads to increasing waste volumes and severe ecological problems around the globe. A circular economy, in which packaging is circulated in closed material loops allows to mitigate the littering problem and to cut down on virgin oil resources by widely using secondary material from mechanical recycling. However, at the moment recycling effectiveness is limited and mostly leads to downgraded material quality.
In order to induce socio-ecological change in the packaging sector, this project is a transdisciplinary collaboration between JKU’s Institute of Integrated Quality Design (IQD), Institute of Polymeric Materials and Testing (IPMT) and Future Energy Lab (FEL). The number of resources as input into high level recycling is dependent on collection, sorting, and recycling effectiveness. Collection depends on consumers who can provide input in their handling preferences and (knowledge) needs regarding product design. This research brings together actors from the entire circular plastics value chain including consumers to deeply understand the innovation processes for circular packaging design as well as the role of policy and political advocacy to promote a circular economy.