Today, many industrial products made of plastic are burnt or deposited after use because they either are not designed for recycling or because the available recycling technologies cannot handle the products. Several of the largest Danish companies prefer a change, and they would like recycling to increase by at least 20 percent before 2025.  

Besides Topsoe, the project partners comprise Coloplast, Novo Nordisk, Danfoss, BASF, Grundfos, and COOP. Danish Technological Institute has united the companies in a project called Circular Industrial Plastics.

“By joining forces, we expect to significantly increase knowledge and improve technologies for recycling of plastics. This project will address the issue of plastic waste that our society is struggling with by speeding up the transition to circular economy,” says Kim Grøn Knudsen, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Topsoe. 

Broad access to circular plastic knowledge and technologies

The first step in the project will be to survey and investigate the plastic materials that are currently used in the companies and then create an infrastructure for further treatment and recovery.  

At the completion of the project, the objective will be to demonstrate full-scale solutions for selected products within the categories of medical, technical, and consumer plastics, and to demonstrate the interaction of new recovery technologies in the circular flow.  

Furthermore, the ambition is to give Danish companies access to new knowledge and technologies for establishing circular flows within plastics. 

“The Circular Industrial Plastics project lays the foundation for a platform that matches materials and recovery technologies. This will give Danish companies easy access to co-operation and knowledge about specific solutions that can be implemented at once – but also to knowledge about innovation in the future. In brief, the project will be a catalyst for the transition from linear to circular production and use of plastics,” says Dr. Lars Haahr Jepsen from Danish Technological Institute. 

The project is supported by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency and is a so-called flagship project where solutions will be tested and demonstrated in full-scale to inspire Danish trade and industry.    

 Participants in the Circular Industrial Plastics project 

Plastics consuming industrial companies

Novo Nordisk A/S 

Danfoss A/S 

Coloplast A/S 

Grundfos A/S 

F&H A/S 

Coop Danmark A/S 

Reprocessing, infrastructure and recovery

Trebo ApS 

Zirq Medical A/S 

Makeen Power A/S 

Crossbridge Energy A/S 

Topsoe A/S 

Marius Pedersen A/S 

Geminor ApS 

BASF A/S 

Knowledge partners

Aarhus University 

DTU, Technical University of Denmark 

Danish Technological Institute (project manager)