From May 8th to May 12th The international BioSC Summer School, titled “Plastic and Sustainable Bioeconomy. How does that fit?“, provided participants with a comprehensive program to address the plastic waste problem and its integration into a sustainable, bio-based circular economy.

The session offered a multidisciplinary approach, covering the biobased production of plastics, clean degradation processes, and the complete reintegration of plastic components into the circular economy.

In this context, our colleague Nick Wierckx, from Forschungszentrum Jülich presented the overall approach the project follows to transition plastics into the circular economy. This included lectures on the general plastics problem, the enzymatic depolymerization of plastics, the microbial upcycling of plastic hydrolysates, and the bio-based production of plastic building blocks. For its part, Sonja Herres-Pawlis, Chair of Bioinorganic Chemistry at RWTH Aachen University introduced the initiative with results and concepts from UPLIFT and other projects.