This week, Germany’s plastics industry takes its innovation story to Berlin — and our series with Plastics Europe Deutschland looks at what it will take to turn industrial strength into action.

Ahead of this week’s innovation press conference, we sit down with Christine Bunte from Plastics Europe Deutschland to discuss what Germany’s plastics industry can contribute to the country’s high-tech ambitions — and what needs to happen to turn that potential into action.

Germany has strong industrial capabilities, material expertise and an active innovation landscape. But having the right ingredients is not enough. The challenge now is to move faster and get into the “do stage.”

We discuss:

• Why plastics and material competence are essential to Germany’s High-Tech Agenda — from e-mobility and renewable energy to electronics and robotics

• What industry needs from policymakers — including competitive energy, infrastructure, less bureaucracy and stronger incentives for transformation

• What progress could realistically look like three years from now — and why transforming industrial competitiveness will take time

This week, many of these ideas will take center stage at the innovation press conference in Berlin, bringing together voices from industry, startups and academia to discuss the future competitiveness of Germany’s plastics industry.

The capabilities are there. The innovation is there. Now the question is how to turn Germany’s industrial strength into action.

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Our series with Plastics Europe Deutschland continues with a perspective from someone who has been observing the chemical and plastics industries from a front-row seat for more than three decades.

Michael Reubold is a polymer chemist by training — but instead of working directly in the plastics industry, he has spent more than 30 years observing, reporting on and engaging with it as Editor-in-Chief of CHEManager.

That gives him a unique perspective on how the industry has changed, the challenges it faces today, and where it could go next.

𝗪𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘀:

• How the plastics industry — and the way we talk about it — has changed over the past three decades

• Why today’s combination of climate, waste, energy and competitiveness challenges makes this transformation different

• How innovation ecosystems connecting startups, academia and established industry can help Germany and Europe reinvent the sector

• Why circularity, material sovereignty and the right policy environment are becoming increasingly important for Europe’s industrial future

Despite the scale of the challenges, Michael remains optimistic. The knowledge, infrastructure and innovative capacity are there. The task now is to connect these strengths and create the conditions for the industry to reinvent itself.

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Flame retardants rarely get much attention. Yet they play an important role in enabling the plastics used across electronics, electric vehicles, renewable energy technologies, buildings and many other high-tech applications.

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Adrian Beard from Clariant to explore the science behind flame retardants and the challenge of combining fire safety, material performance and sustainability.

We discuss:

• How flame retardants help make polymers suitable for demanding high-tech applications

• Why electrification, batteries and renewable energy technologies are creating new material safety challenges

• Why developing a new flame retardant can take five to ten years from the initial idea to commercial scale

• How fire safety and circularity can be reconciled, and why durability and recyclability sometimes create difficult trade-offs

• How sustainability and regulation are changing the way new chemistries are developed

• Why even more sustainable solutions still need a viable business case and market acceptance

It’s a fascinating reminder that some of the technologies enabling innovation are almost invisible in the final product. We may never see the chemistry, but without it, many of the materials and technologies we rely on would not perform as safely as they do.

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Our series with Plastics Europe Germany takes on another key question for the future of plastics: What happens when conventional recycling isn't enough?

In this episode, we sit down with Marcel Beermann, CEO of ARCUS Greencycling Technologies, to explore the role chemical recycling can play in tackling mixed and difficult-to-recycle plastic waste — and what it takes to turn these waste streams back into valuable resources.

We discuss:

• Why mechanical and chemical recycling can complement each other, rather than compete

• How mixed plastic waste can be converted into pyrolysis oil and used again as feedstock for new plastics

• What it takes to scale chemical recycling from technology to industrial reality

• Why regulation and market demand will be critical to creating a viable circular economy

• How making better use of our own plastic waste can strengthen Europe’s resource resilience and industrial competitiveness

One thing becomes clear: Europe already has a significant resource in its plastic waste. The question is how we make better use of it.

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The energy transition isn’t only about generating renewable energy. It’s also about how we transport and distribute that energy — and the materials that make this infrastructure possible.

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Matthias Pursch from Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics to explore the often invisible role advanced materials play in the infrastructure around us.

We discuss:

• How material innovation is enabling high-voltage and HVDC cables high-voltage power cables, including HVDC systems, to transport electricity over long distances

• Why these technologies are increasingly important as we connect renewable energy generation to the grid

• How advanced materials are helping improve district heating infrastructure

• The role of recycled and bio-based feedstocks The role of post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials and bio-circular feedstocks, and the challenge of combining circularity with demanding technical performance

• Why collaboration across the value chain is essential to bring new solutions into real-world infrastructure

Many of these materials remain almost invisible in our everyday lives — yet they play an essential role in making our energy systems more efficient, durable and ready for the future.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts!

 New episode of our series with Plastics Europe Deutschland, exploring “What HighTech is made of – Plastics as the Enablers of German Innovation Goals,” is live.

Episode 2: Rethinking How We Innovate Materials

How do we turn promising material ideas into solutions that actually work at industrial scale — and can we do it faster?

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Jürgen Stebani, founder and CEO of Polymaterials, to explore how material innovation itself is changing.

We discuss:

• How to accelerate material development and move from ideas to industrial solutions faster

• How to bridge the gap between startups, research and established industry

• How AI, digitalization and data are changing the way new compounds and materials are developed

• What Germany needs to remain competitive as a location for material innovation

• Why speed, experimentation and a willingness to take risks matter for the next generation of materials

Because ultimately, innovation isn’t only about discovering new materials. It’s also about rethinking how we develop them and bring them into industry.

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Germany’s future technologies share one common denominator: plastics. In our series with Plastics Europe Deutschland, we talk to the people turning that into solutions — from material volume to material competence, the core idea behind The Plastic Shift.

For our first company conversation, we sit down with Daniel Koch from LyondellBasell to look at what circularity means when it moves beyond the lab and into industrial reality.

At LyondellBasell’s Wesseling site, the company is building its first industrial-scale MoReTec plant, designed to turn difficult-to-recycle mixed plastic waste into feedstock for new polymers.

We talk about what it really takes to bring circularity to industrial scale — from transforming existing production sites and integrating new technologies into established operations, to creating the conditions that allow these investments to succeed. And we explore why the transition will depend not only on new technology, but also on infrastructure, expertise, regulation and demand.

As Daniel puts it:

“Circularity is not really only a technology question.”

And perhaps that is the bigger story: transforming the plastics industry doesn’t necessarily mean starting again from scratch. It can also mean using the infrastructure, expertise and people we already have to build something new.

This is the first episode in our new mini-series exploring the innovative spirit of Germany’s plastics and polymer industry — and the people turning transformation into industrial reality.

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Germany doesn't have an ideas problem.

Eight years of shrinking industrial production. Christine Bunte, Managing Director of Plastics Europe Deutschland, calls it what it is: not an economic dip, but a structural crisis.

And yet — the universities are excellent. The research is excellent. The ideas are there. What's missing is the step from idea to industrial scale.

“We have lost speed in making these ideas industrial products and bringing them to industrial scale. That is often the step that's missing.”

So Plastics Europe Deutschland is turning the perspective around: from material volume to material competence. Plastics not as the villain, but as the invisible key technology behind Germany's future industries.

From today, our series “What Hightech Is Made Of” — following the seven fields of Germany's Hightech-Agenda, with the people actually building the solutions. Every Tuesday and Thursday, through to the innovation press conference in Berlin on 11 September.

Here a short preview of what’s coming:

• How mixed plastic waste becomes raw material again - at industrial scale, inside a working chemical park. 

• Why finding the right formulation used to take months and now takes minutes. 

• What's inside a power cable and why it decides how much wind energy actually arrives.

• Why no electric car moves without flame retardants. 

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What started as an effort to create a better alternative to conventional plastic straws led to something nobody expected.

In this episode, we speak with Brad Laporte and Michael Winters from WinCup, the team behind PHADE®—a PHA-based material designed to biodegrade in environments where conventional plastics persist. Along the way, they discovered an entirely unexpected application: helping researchers restore coral reefs by protecting young corals during their most vulnerable stage.

Together, we discuss:

• How bacteria can produce the next generation of plastics

• Why they chose PHA over paper straws

• The surprising connection between biodegradable plastics and coral restoration

• What it takes to bring a new material from the lab to billions of products

• Why science, certification, and performance matter in building trust

This is a fascinating conversation about material innovation, unexpected discoveries, and how one idea can solve problems far beyond its original purpose.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!