The winners the Circular Plastics Case Competition were announced at NPE. Organized by non-profit Net Impact in partnership with Hillenbrand Inc and The Coca-Cola Company, the competition encourages students and emerging business professionals to rethink the plastics value chain by designing innovative solutions that help keep plastics in the economy and out of the environment.
This year, the case competition prompted participants to explore how to increase the supply of recycled polyethylene (rPET). The organizers hope the solutions presented will contribute to solving current rPET supply challenges due to low recycling rates, spurred by falling prices and profitability.
A team from Boise State University took home the first prize. The ‘Strong Bottle’ team proposed an innovative redesign of bottles to prevent flattening during the recycling process, which in turn could result in a 15% increase in PET collected during the recycling process. The solution addresses the problem that many lightweight PET bottles are landfilled because they are easily flattened and mistaken for paper during the recycling process in material recovery facilities.
Recruitment effort
The first edition of the Circular Plastics Challenge took place last year. The competition aims to change young people’s perception of the plastic industry and help attract new talent to an ageing industry.
“It actually started with an intern that I had,” Tory Flynn, Chief Sustainability Officer at Hillenbrand told Sustainable Plastics. “I was recruiting for an internship with our sustainability team at Hillenbrand. There was an intern that was very interested, right out of school. The student had all the credentials we wanted: background in environment science, very technically gifted. But he was not interested in working for a plastic company and he made that very clear.”
Flynn tried to explain how Hillenbrand manufactures equipment for a variety of industries and applications but was met with a ‘built up wall that plastics are bad’, she recounted. That student ended up introducing Flynn to Net Impact, which supports students and professionals interested in using business skills in support of social and environmental causes. The competition then grew out of a partnership between Net Impact, Hillenbrand, and Coca-Cola.
“What I'm finding is that this next generation cares more about the environment than previous generations. They are three times more likely to choose a company that cares about the environment. Recruiting is always challenging. What we're trying to do is expand our search as a company, we want the best people to come work for us. We want innovators and industrial people and that's what the competition really tries to achieve.”
Towards gender parity
Within that recruitment effort, Hillenbrand also wants to attract more women to the industry.
It’s not news that the plastics industry is male dominated. According to 2023 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 31.8% of employees in plastics manufacturing are women. As the industry faces significant labor shortages, it has become evidently clear that attracting female employees is one of the ways to address that challenge.
Research also shows that there is a small, but consistent, gender gap in environmental views and climate change opinions. On average, women are slightly more likely than men to be concerned about the environment and have stronger pro-climate opinions and beliefs.
That might mean it is even harder for plastics companies to attract female talent without addressing the ‘plastics is bad’ perception issue.
“I think that there's a whole untapped resource of women entering this field,” Flynn said. “That's not something you're able to solve overnight. It starts very young with an interest, and it grows - we're not going to just suddenly find an engineer walking up the door tomorrow. You really need more women to enter the engineering field, so I think that that this competition really meets those two angles.”
Measuring results
The Circular Plastics Case Competition is only on its second year, so there isn’t yet data on how many participants do go on to join the plastics industry. Nonetheless, 86% of program participants reported being ‘inspired’ to continue working towards incorporating plastics into the circular economy.
“It's our goal to track that through KPIS over the years,” Flynn noted. “We’re starting to increase women engagement in the competition, it has increased from 20% to 38%. I think the other piece that we need to track is interest in plastics. I think that this is not limited to a Hillenbrand topic, I think this is an industry topic. And you start to see this at NPE too, with targeted events like the Women in plastics breakfast, for example.”
Circular Plastics Case Competition stats
In its second year, the Circular Plastics Challenge generated 65 applications from 18 countries across the globe. Five finalist teams virtually presented their unique solutions Wednesday to a panel of judges at NPE 2024.
Second place went to EcoTrace, led by professionals Aadhithya Sujith and Sowmya Singh from India. Third place went to rMarket, led by Carissa Tasto and Jennifer Larkin, recent MBA graduates from Presidio Graduate School, San Anselmo, California, US.
To recognize their efforts, the top three teams will receive $10,000, $2,500, and $1,000, respectively.
Last year, the winner was Ashaya, an Indian-based start-up that is turning post- consumer multi-layer plastic typically found in packets of chips, into new products, starting with recycled sunglasses.