Innovative and efficient waste and recycling management

Against the background of global population and economic growth, careful and efficient use of natural resources is one of the key competencies of sustainable societies. One of the new approaches being pursued by the environmental technology industry is conversion of waste into secondary raw materials. For example, in the future, plastic waste that has been difficult to recycle up to now will be returned to the material cycle by means of chemical processes.

Climate-friendly energy recovery from waste is also a field of research and development with untapped potential. For instance, the Center for Sustainable Fuels at the Fraunhofer Institutes IGB is currently working on new production methods to generate climate-neutral liquid fuels with high energy density from biogenic residual and waste materials, carbon dioxide and electricity generated from renewables.