Circular and plastics

Overview

The Circular Economy Centre (CEC) has just won a UKRI grant as part of a University of Cambridge consortium to look at “Circular Economy Approaches to Eliminate Plastic Waste”. The project brings together departments across Cambridge; the Departments of Chemistry, Zoology, Physics, Engineering, Materials, Chemical Engineering, and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

Project dates

2019-2020

Aims and objectives

The project aims to look at:

Sustainable feedstocks and materials as cleaner and more recyclable plastic alternatives.
Models for understanding plastic flows through the UK economy, society and environment to improve the recovery of plastics.
Service design methodologies to influence business behaviour.
Innovative recycling approaches to recover the high energy content of waste plastics by producing electricity with microbes and chemical fuels using sunlight.

Co-investigators

Khaled Soufani

Management Practice Professor of Financial Economics & Policy

PhD (University of Nottingham)

View Khaled's profile

Plastic has become a malevolent symbol of our wasteful society. It’s also fundamental to almost every aspect of our lives. How do we shift our ‘take, make, throw-away’ plastic world towards ‘recycle, recover, re-use’? Experts, including Dr Khaled Soufani, Director of the Circular Economy Centre at Cambridge Judge Business School, offer their thoughts.

Tackling plastic waste

CEC is part of a consortium at the University of Cambridge that was awarded more than £1 million funding by the UK Research and Innovation agency to respond to challenges posed by plastic waste.

Related websites

Cambridge Circular Plastics Centre (CirPlas).

Cambridge Creative Circular Plastics Centre (CirPlas)

The Cambridge Creative Circular Plastics Centre (CirPlas) is one of eight UK centres set up to find solutions to the problem of plastic waste. Established in 2019, their work was initially funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). We have grown into a global network of projects and people who think creatively about plastics.

Visit the CirPlas website

What can businesses do to keep plastic out of the environment?

In the process of designing ways to measure circularity, Circular Economy Centre researchers identified what businesses are doing, what needs to change, and what the challenges are to becoming more circular. Based on this research, CirPlas has written advice for businesses.

Read the business information