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The Birmingham Plastics Network is an interdisciplinary network of over 60 researchers at the University of Birmingham, which aims to engage with the plastics waste problem comprehensively, utilising a whole-systems approach and enabling widespread impact which considers economic, environmental, social and ecological impacts.

Birmingham has a rich history with plastics, dating back to the mid-19th century. The city’s journey with plastics began with Alexander Parkes, a Birmingham-born artisan and chemist, who invented Parkesine, broadly considered to be the first man-made plastic, in 1862.

Since its invention, Birmingham’s contributions to the plastics industry have been significant, including its role in the production of Bakelite in Tyseley, and the development of a broad range of innovations. At the Birmingham Plastics Network, we believe that Birmingham now possesses a civic responsibility to present the innovations and solutions required to create a more sustainable plastics future.

The Birmingham Plastics Network is an interdisciplinary network of over 60 researchers at the University of Birmingham, which aims to engage with the plastics waste problem comprehensively, utilising a whole-systems approach and enabling widespread impact which considers economic, environmental, social and ecological impacts.

The Birmingham Plastics Network | University of Birmingham

An introduction to the Birmingham Plastics Network and their ambitions for 2023/2024 include a Policy Commission on 'A Future for Sustainable Plastics'.

An introduction to the Birmingham Plastics Network

Transcript

[Music] Hello I'm Andrew Dove, a professor of Sustainable Polymer Chemistry at the University of Birmingham I'm also a co-lead of the Birmingham Plastics Network. The Birmingham Plastics network is a collection of around 50 researchers from across the breadth of the University of Birmingham's research expertise we've recently received a grant from EPSOC and BBSRC that is focused on circularising medical testing waste plastic there is a lot of waste plastic generated every day and millions of tons of plastics are generated through those waste testing plastics. They're used once and they're thrown away or they're incinerated we'd like to find ways to be able to circularise that waste part of our approach to addressing plastic waste is to work in an interdisciplinary manner.

One of the really interesting things I've seen happen in the last five years is the increase in collaboration when we first started five years ago most people didn't understand, well they understood a little bit of their own part in the supply chain, but they didn't understand the whole picture and that's the change.

Hi, I'm Professor Fern Elston Baker and I'm the director of The Institute of STEMM in Culture and Society at Birmingham University and I'm co-leading on the Birmingham Plastic Networks Policy Commission. The Birmingham Plastics Network brings together different voices to try and find a sort of whole system's way of thinking about how we address the future of sustainable plastics and it's only through bringing these different voices together that we can really think about those broader social, economic, environmental and political implications of Plastics in society in the UK. That's why we've convened a policy commission to actually start to think about how can we pull together all of this different thinking from across these different areas to really respond to the challenge that faces this in the coming decades.

I'm Baroness Molly Meacher across-bench peer I'm not a scientist but rather I'm an economist, but I am absolutely passionate about the vital importance of finding a sustainable future for plastics for the planet. We do need a national conversation on the future of plastics and that is why I'm delighted to lead a policy commission with the University of Birmingham to find a pathway to a sustainable future for Plastics and to develop recommendations for government to ensure this pathway is followed.

Actually, the UK government is in a great position to place impactful and ambitious targets with respect to plastic circularity and I'm fully confident that the policy commission work that the University of Birmingham is doing is going to really lead to some positive outcomes in that space.

  • Challenge

    Since plastic became widely commercialised in the mid-20th century, the world has produced over 10 billion tonnes and thrown away almost 8 billion tonnes. Of the plastic in the UK, 37% has been sent for recycling, 44% incinerated for energy recovery, and 19% has gone to landfill.

    While over the last 50 years plastic’s high performance, low cost, lightweight nature and durability has solved many problems but, in doing so, it has contributed to many serious environmental crises. To date, we have only scratched the surface in our understanding of the scale of the potential impacts and dangers of plastic particles within our environment.

    Despite being essential components of our lives, we face growing pressures to create a plastic-free world, but this may not be realistic.