2024-01-06 12:09:01
Found: A car battery that was illegally disposed of in household waste. Image: dpa
Chemical companies are demanding that mechanical recycling is not the only part of the quota. Only under the most severe conditions, say environmental groups.
It’s been a long time since the chemical industry was a main opponent for environmental activists. The fronts were still hardened in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, managers in the industry refer to “Earth Overshoot Day”, the day on which the resources created within a year are used up. This year it fell on August 2nd and in Germany on May 4th. “That must and will change,” promised Harald Schwager, deputy CEO of the Evonik Group, in November at the Circular Valley Forum, a conference on the circular economy, in Wuppertal.
Philip Krohn
Editor in business, responsible for “People and Business”.
While he believed the industry was on the right track, he sharply attacked politics. They are not doing enough to combat high energy costs; a bridge electricity price could have ensured competitiveness. With regard to the ecological transformation, he was optimistic: “We have to use resources for longer. Anything that cannot be recycled must be biodegradable.” Value chains, business models and consumer behavior would gradually change.
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