with reduced structural tonnage.

Waste recycling within plants is something many manufacturers are looking to increase.This does not come without quality and technical challenges.

Local recycling, which is directly discouraged by some regulations, can increase batch-to-batch cross contamination.Recycling can concentrate impurities, an issue that requires monitoring and can drive the need for further processing.The technical issues are primarily around ensuring solvent waste is neither mixed with other solvents nor with other water-based waste streams.

In fact, the segregation of waste streams in manufacturing is a very significant first step as this opens the possibility of multiple approaches to extraction, recycling and treatment..Although there wasn’t a focus on recycling outside of the factory, there seemed to be many more potential solutions in this area.

With the right segregation, there are opportunities for waste management companies to work with manufacturers to find both technically and economically sound solutions to recycle back into manufacturing and/or into other supply chains.

Although not without issues, there was a strong sense that further conversations between manufacturers and the waste management industry to create new productive circular economies would be fruitful.. Strategy co-development to identify supplies of new solvents to support growing technologies – and growth in shared geographies – could foster new, efficient, and sustainable solvent supply and recycling routes.. Techno-economic modelling is seen as a vital component in guiding short-, medium and longer-term decision making on solvents.. As the chemical market changes alongside fiscal policies, understanding how to stay cost-effective and adaptable will be important.In some respects they’re the easy ones, because many of them are already manufacturing products.

They’re familiar with manufacturing processes and, in some cases, are already supplying other industries and familiar with other mindsets and cultures.They’ll easily adapt to this future delivery model.. As the SMEs grow and invest in their capabilities, we’ll see more drive from that supply chain side because of the confidence they’ll have in the pipeline, and the opportunity to be secure in that investment.

However, one challenge we do face is that SMEs can be hard to reach because they’re often so busy doing their jobs that they don’t necessarily have time to look at these bigger changes.One reason government funding and R&D programmes are so important is because these things enable a de-risked environment whereby SMEs can work and learn the evolving operating and delivery systems..