TecPart Annual Conference 2024

This year‘s annual TecPart conference on September 19th, 2024 in Herzogenaurach was once again a memorable event.

The event, packed with high-class speakers from industry and research, was fully booked. Felix Loose, chairman of TecPart e.V, opened the event with a greeting. He mentioned the less than ideal economic circumstances and that the manufacturing of commodity-products in Germany becomes increasingly difficult. Companies must assess, which products they can still deliver and what added value they can contribute. At the end he read out loud a list of wishes aimed at politics, whose core message was that the speed of regulation has to slow down.

Michael Weigelt, Managing Director of TecPart, also welcomed everyone present and then moved on to the speakers of the day. These were numerous and a few shall be mentioned at this point. The complete program is available here. (Note: The presentation by Thomas Drescher, Head of Pre-Development and Vehicle Assessment at Volkswagen AG, on the topic of “Sustainability and ELV” was unfortunately cancelled at short notice).

Dr. Klaus Bauknecht, chief-economist at IKB Deutsche Industriebank made the opening speech. A presentation full of energy with an outlook on plastics processing in Germany. However, the outlook is not very great. Using the ifo business climate index, Dr. Bauknecht showed that the economic mood has been declining steadily for 6 years and that this is no longer a cyclical trend but rather indicates a structural problem.

The topic then changed to research and development. The second presentation of the day was given by Professor Dr. Dietmar Drummer, who holds the chair for plastics technology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He took the audience from the economic macro level to the micro level. He gave a positive impulse with his talk "Research and Development - A Trend Report for the Plastics Processing of Tomorrow", in which Professor Drummer spoke about various new possibilities in plastics processing that offer opportunities.

Professor Dr. Peter Quicker from RWTH Aachen then explained the findings of the PlastCycle study, which will soon be published by the UBA, in his talk on chemical recycling. These were received with particularly great interest. Chemical recycling has its right to exist because low-quality plastic waste can be made usable as a material, but this also requires effective material flow management.

Breaks for coffee and food offered numerous opportunities for exchange and networking, even outside on the terrace with the sun shining and the temperatures being mild.

In the afternoon, two talks on and from the automotive industry followed.

Martin Schneebauer, Expert Materials and Process at the BMW Group, provided insights on the topic “Sustainability and circular economy for plastics in automotive engineering – a contradiction?”. A very exciting lecture, with a well-chosen topic. Sustainability and the circular economy are topics that will continue to occupy the plastics and automotive industries for a long time to come. For many of those present, especially the recyclers, BMW's expectation that recyclates must be cost-neutral or cheaper was interesting.

The picture that Oliver Stahl and Klaus Kirr from Porsche Consulting, presented in their presentation "Circular economy in the plastics industry - organizational challenges and opportunities" was characterized by a large delta in the future availability of recyclates. Following the market mechanism of supply and demand, this resulted in a contradictory outlook to the one from BMW for the future in terms of supply and pricing.

However, it remains undisputed that the use of recyclates or secondary raw materials as well as the pursuit of a circular economy regarding plastics will remain a dominating topic in the future.

After a long and very exciting day, the conclusion of the annual conference, the evening event, followed, as always. This year's surprise location was the Vineria in Nuremberg. As expected, this part of the event was also very well attended and allowed everyone to exchange ideas in a more relaxed and less formal atmosphere with good food and wine.

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The following day, Friday, September 20th, the ordinary members' meeting took place. This was again very well attended. It started promptly at 9:30 a.m. After a short welcome, the appointment of the secretary for the minutes and approval of the last minutes, the meeting continued with the speech by the chairman, Felix Loose, and the agenda.

The association has established itself as one of the main contact points for companies in the plastics industry, which is also demonstrated by the numerous and well-known new members, such as Audi AG, Remondis and Coperion.

TecPart acts as the voice for companies towards politics and is active in both standardization and research projects such as KARE. The association and the commitment of its members make it possible to actively shape the future of the plastics industry.