My work offices were flooded recently by an unusually high Spring tide. Whilst I was frantically using boxes of old magazines as makeshift sandbags to stem the flow of river water streaming through one door, my computer was gently floating away through another!
As the pandemic recedes, an even greater global challenge in the form of climate change is emerging. With unprecedented weather events, such as extreme temperatures and devastating floods occurring with alarming regularity, the topic of sustainability now matters more than ever.
Life on earth as currently lived is simply not sustainable. Please excuse the pun, but sustainability is the absolute hot topic for our industry as a whole - and recycling plays a huge part of it too.
In this issue, JEC World’s show organisers explain why sustainability will be at the centre of its 2022 event, whilst Composites UK looks at the options for tackling the composites end-of-life waste challenge. Elsewhere, Ru-bix says it is using recycled materials manufactured from bio-carbon and recycled products to manufacture the tooling boards of tomorrow, whilst Velocity Composites explains how the removal of waste from its kitting processes helps it achieve low carbon goals.
It seems that while sustainability used to be a niche focus area, it’s now become an industry-shared problem. Clearly, we all have some serious net zero targets to reach, but getting there will mean adopting a multidisciplinary approach - and much more cross-sector collaboration. The race to net zero will require our industry coming together to solve this fundamental issue.
Anyone seeking more information need look no further than some of the interesting topics featured in this issue that are helping to make a world of difference. Meanwhile, I look forward to finally seeing you again in Paris at JEC World.
