We did it – first network meeting of the LimnoPlast team in person!

The week started with a 2-day workshop about Circular Economy for all of our ESRs. The event took place at the Fraunhofer Forum in Berlin and was organized by Fraunhofer UMSICHT. After basics about plastic loss and circular economy (CE) e.g. history an concept of CE, T-Strategies in the CE, typical losses of microplastics in the life cycle, external speakers gave an explanation of value chains, state of knowledge regarding plastic emissions and environmental trade-offs in the field of tires (wdk, Wirtschaftsverband der deutschen Kautschukindustrie e.V.), textiles (University of Applied Sciences Niederrhein) and insulation materials (IHV, Industrieverband Hartschaum e.V.). Afterwards, three groups where set up and and the workshop roundtables started, in which the ESRs discussed about point of losses and interventions, derivation of measures to reduce microplastics losses and identification of stakeholders – supported by experts from Fraunhofer UMSICHT.

After two intensive workshop days, the network meeting dinner at the Zero Waste Restaurant FREA was the perfect opportunity to get to know each other with the other joining LimnoPlast-Team members from all over Europe, like supervisors and management team. After warm welcome words of the coordinator Christian Laforsch a cozy get together took place.

Even more LimnoPlasties joined the network on the following day, both in person but also online. After a status update and a look into the future by the project management team, parallel hybrid work package meetings and deliverable meetings took place – even the coffee breaks were used for intense discussions showing that those in person meetings are indispensable – especially for such an interdisciplinary, international EU project.

The reward for the busy and productive first half of the day followed the same day with a boat trip along the Spree river. Windy and cold, but another great opportunity to connect and get to know each other beside neat working facts. An eventful networking event finally came to a pleasant end in a comfortable atmosphere with food and drinks. In conclusion, everyone agreed: the LimnoPlast-Team is very much looking forward to the next time!