INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION

Plastic: solution or pollution? Closing the loop towards a circular economy.

João Santos
What is your interpretation of the Big Idea?

Nowadays our society is dominated by its coziness and not by its relentless to improve the future for the
generations to come. Seems like humanity gave up the world before even trying. We understand that
statement once we look around us and see, plastic.

At the epiphany of its discovery, plastic meant better health, the improvement of wealth, and the creation
of a better future, full of plastic but happy because it was a sterilized future.

After more than a century, we are now understanding the consequences of the reckless mindset that our
ancestors had, not by finding this amazing rearrange of compounds but because they were not able (or did
not care whatsoever) to think further and realize that this discovery might cost thousands or even millions of
lives in a few years.

Just like all the products chipped around the world nowadays, plastic is composed of a cycle connected
to our global economy. Once we understand that cycle and its steps, we can start thinking of an approach
efficient enough to reorganize or even modify it in a way that could benefit millions. After all plastic is both
the solution and the pollution, we just need to understand in which circumstances each one of its meanings
applies.

How does this Big Idea relate to your life?

By understanding the loop and its issues we might be able to find a solid solution to improve the whole
cycle, thus helping local economies and population to still enjoy the coziness of using something so fragile
but so handy as a plastic bag but, itself, being capable of biodegrading without neither liberating harmful
chemicals to our soils nor greenhouse gases. This Big Idea relates to my life as one of my main goals in
life.

Do you have a personal relation to the Big Idea?

Currently living in a country where the plastic recycling rate is only 28% means that most of it ends up in
landfills or even worst, in a forest or even in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I am proud to be called a
Portuguese but unhappy with its performance. Nowadays I am, alongside 4 amazing peers, creating an app
that all users across Europe will be able to use called ‘KAIP’, which means ‘How’ in Lithuanian. This future
app will spread knowledge in a more interactive way to all users and their age ranges regarding both
composting and recycling. I might say that my interest in this specific topic is quite intense, and I am willing
to do whatever it takes to absorb as much knowledge as I can so that I can not only improve this future app
but also find new ways of rearranging this economic cycle of which plastic takes an enormous role serving.
Do you have competencies that could be useful?

Besides being a bachelor’s student in environmental engineering, I have knowledge in physics and
chemistry as well as communication. I am a part of 3 organizations one of which I created at my home
university. I love working as a team and I am passionate about knowledge and culture, I think that these are
going to be unbelievably important competencies for a member of this diverse group.

Do you have contacts that could help?

As an active member of 3 organizations, I might have enough contacts that could at least help us start.
Also, I know one of the directors of a recycling centre in my hometown and that can be helpful in terms of,
in the beginning, trying to understand the different parts of the plastic loop one of which is related to
recycling.