Automotive Recycling, Plastics, and Sustainability

Preface.- Acknowledgements.- 1. A transdisciplinary journey into sustainability science.- 1.1. Transdisciplinarity - why is it so important?.- 1.2. Geographic society and environment research.- 1.3. Systems sciences.- 1.4. Sustainable development.- 1.5. Ecology.- 1.6. Economy.- 1.7. Society, ethics, psychology, politics, and technology.- 1.8. In a nutshell: controversial sustainability as a challenge.- 2. Sustainability and automotive plastics - a controversial industry reality.- 2.1. Plastics.- 2.1.1. Definition and development of plastics.- 2.1.2. The life cycle of plastics.- 2.1.3. Environmental and social impact of plastics.- 2.1.4. Waste treatment technologies for (automotive) plastics.- 2.1.5. Environmentally sound solution: circular life cycle of plastics.- 2.1.6. Plastics are a blessing and a curse - a summary.- 2.2. Automotive plastics.- 2.2.1. Automotive and automotive plastic trends.- 2.2.2. Environmental impact of automotive plastics and cars in general.- 2.2.3.The car lifecycle, ELV management, and recycling.- 2.3. In a nutshell: Holistic controversy of automotive plastics.- 3. What do the experts say? The survey results.-3.1. Validation of survey data through expert workshop.- 3.2. Demographic data and details about the survey participants.- 3.3. Automotive plastics recycling and recycled plastics.- 3.4. Special information from the survey groups.- 3.4.1. The survey - automotive group.- 3.4.2.The survey - recycling group.- 3.4.3. The survey - plastics group.- 3.5. In a nutshell: The survey results.- 4. A SCOT analysis, future perspectives and scenarios.- 5. Concepts for solutions to advance automotive recycling.- 5.1. A solution ranking by experts.- 5.2. Solutions for politics, companies, and independent institutions.- 5.3. Elements of a roadmap to ecologically sustainable automotive plastics.- 6. Today's illusion: true sustainability.- 7. Today's chance: the recycling renaissance.- 8. Why automotive recycling is an opportunity - an executive summary.-

The author, David Schönmayr PhD, is a scholar in the field of corporate sustainability. He received his interdisciplinary doctoral degree at the Department of Geography and Regional Science, and the Institute of Systems Sciences, Innovation and Sustainability Research, University of Graz. Currently, he is active at the Cleantech-Cluster in Upper Austria promoting practical sustainability together with industry, research institutes and universities.