2019 - There is a Greta in everyone of us

Another year.

Yeah, a year is a long time if you start immediately. Long enough for fundamental changes.

Though fundamental changes do not come alone. They have companions.

1. Vision where to go.
2. Endurance to stay the course.
3. Unconditionality to take whatever may come your way. 

And fundamental changes assume a record mindset. A mindset that brings some level of discomfort. Historically proven.

No Olympic medal winner ever won in full comfort.

But what a year, the year 2019!

The plastics crisis erupted.

Initially reported on the radio and in the newspaper, it finally settled in our minds. It catched our imagination. How bad can it be! And it disseminated to our streets. Masses of people, in rainy or thirsty weather sometimes, complaining about climate change in general, with plastics as a major contributor: oil derived raw materials, global shipments, and burned or landfilled “in the end”. And say that most people hate unhappy ends.

But say that most people also feel so unmighty in this whole situation. So let’s shout to the governments. Let’s blame the whole system. It is outworn, isn’t it? It was never made to cope with a climate crisis like this! Limits we have never crossed before. Pure exhaustion of raw materials and healthy space, created in about four billion of years, and harmed in about one rude century of humanity! If a well-known politician claims “he has a rocket that is unbeatable”, let him then restore our world with that rocket. Damn please stop me or I’m gonna cry like a child. Humanity will turn humble as a crying child. Indeed, Christmas was not such a bad invention, after all. Much better than unbeatable rockets.

But yeah what a year. 2019 was the year of protest. The feeling of people could not any longer stay inside. It had to erupt. It needed a voice. And it needed hero’s and icons, like Greta. Dear Greta, how inspirational was your appearance. Just your name, and people get satisfied for a moment, with a glimpse of hope. Thank you, Greta, your leverage also goes far beyond unbeatable rockets.

Of course, there were new facts. Inconvenient facts. A lot. And I have a winner. We knew there were microplastics all around. Now it looks like they cause immune dysregulation. I hear myself being cautious during lectures, like “microplastics are everywhere, but we do not know yet what that means toxicity-wise”. As I wanted to spread a feeling of hope to my public in the middle of an apparent disaster.

As from 2019, I am changing my words in a subtle way, steering towards “let’s avoid microplastics with as much as we can”.

And that has huge consequences. It means that recycling of plastics can never be the total solution. It is a partial solution. Because recycling does nothing against the biggest evil of all: the 3% of human misbehavior to expose yearly eight million tons of plastics simply to natural habitats! That is a huge source of microplastics! But also our clothing and carpets and coatings and many other materials, just release microplastics upon wearing them out! You would say “let’s use our old stuff longer so we suppress the footprint” and I say “yes well done but you just use stuff that has been designed in fossil times!”

We need REDESIGNED materials.

Now! Yesterday!

I even have hardly time to protest in the streets. Feel free to go without me next time.

Because I will be busy in the laboratory and production halls, with our scientists and engineers. Grabbing into our wealth of “BioBased Building Blocks” (B4).

Just like an architect builds a sustainable house, we build a sustainable plastic.

And another one.

And another one.

Faster than any unbeatable rocket on the planet, we come with redesigned plastics. Faster than any unbeatable rocket, we bring it into the applications, where people can start to use the better alternative. Convince our business partners, with a never-seen urgency. The house is on fire. Let’s tap water, and let’s tap new B4plastics materials. Not as a future speaking, but as 2019 acting. At B4plastics, we have begun long before the smoke was there.

By now, we try to guard the fastest expanding library of novel sustainable plastic materials in the world. “The plastics that will find their reason of existence on a truly sustainable planet”. No wonder we grow some orders of magnitude faster than the established fossil industry. A good sign for this world. Yes, there is a reason why more and more investment instances turn away from fossil products, to invest in sustainable technologies. In principle, the fact that we exist, contributes to that reason.

After such an intensive year, our B4plastics crew takes a breath of fresh air in this end-of-year week. The urgency and record mindset at B4plastics, nestles down in some relaxation. Not bad to have some reflection in between. Reflection as these words in front of you.

What brings 2020? We are ready to go another leap. To expand our library with materials. To grow the impact. To multiply the applications where new sustainable customized plastic materials find their new homes. Where people get to know us: we have scheduled important encounters with the broad public and for all with children – the civilians of the new sustainable world. And the pipeline with new materials and applications is fuller than ever.

Let me end with you. You, as all of us, in need of more hope. Let me say there are plenty of reasons to be hopeful.

There is a Greta in everyone of us.

Yes dare to take it eco-bullish, as we do.

If there is one moment in time, we need to prove that indeed human beings are up for great performance and can take care of this world, now is the time to prove. Let us be guides to each other, each with our own talents, to turn any unmighty feeling between us into a diverse spectrum of healing actions. “Diverse and together” are very strong words. 

For B4plastics, we welcome the New Year in the New Decade with outspoken words:

If the fossil plastics industry is a bubble, B4plastics is a needle

And we count on you to blow the new sustainable materials balloon, together with us. A pretty one. The one our children will fall in love with!

Trusting that my wishes get wings, I wish you a lot of vision, endurance and unconditional spirit in all your 2020 eco-undertakings and beyond!

And a large lung capacity, to blow with us.