Regional collaboration is the way forward

On the brink of 2023 I read a good article about home, health and elderly care in the Netherlands. We get more and more elderly, more care is needed and we get only less people willing to work long hours in care. And a government trying to fix the system. And the same government not understanding we have to move to another system, instead of fixing the unfixable system. Professor Marcel Canoy (VU Amsterdam) sees the solution within the local community, in local or regional co-operatives and collaboration.

This I like. And not only for healthcare. For many things (but not all things) regional or local solutions should be sought. In the set up of UPPACT we also try to set up regional circular systems for plastic and textile waste, so organisations, companies and communities become responsible for their own waste and use their own waste again to replace imported materials made from primary or fossil resources.?

If we build regional ecosystems for waste, for care, for food, our energy and even nature we can approach solutions in a much more holistic way. We have to care about the region or municipality we live in, about the people that live with us in our region, the nature around us. Good examples are the energy co-operatives being set up. And unfortunately, being frustrated by our governments in rules and regulations, although we are slowly moving in the right direction.

In our impact driven start-up UPPACT the regional, circular approach works. In one of our 2022 pilots we are using waste from ships, from the port and from the sea around our test factory in de Eemshaven in Groningen (NL) to make (fully recyclable) fenders and girders for the quays of the same port we get the waste from. Our client – or I would rather call them our partner – Seaports Groningen is happy and enthousiastic about this approach. And we use this pilot a lot to demonstrate the possibilities of closing the loop regionally. And have done the same with after-festival camping waste from Lowlands22– where we supplied construction materials for Lowlands23 made from the after-festival camping waste left behind in 2022.

These pilots and examples show it’s possible to work in a much more circular way, as long as we want to … collaborate and solve our societal problems together. In collaboration and possible co-operatives these problems can be solved. If we are willing to change the system a lot is possible.

In 2023 we have to move from our test and demo factory in the Eemshaven to our first regional DEMO plant in the Northern Netherlands and process big volumes of ‘unrecyclable’ plastic, the 70% (!) currently NOT recycled plastic or textile waste in The Netherlands, into construction materials. The technology is ready, supply is abundant for the years to come and even off-takers and markets have been found and waiting eagerly for us to start production. With the right support from (strategic) partners, investors, funds, governments and regulators, we can build our first regional circular ecosystem in the Northern Netherlands in 2023. Together with our regional stakeholders (we call them ‘streek-holders’ in Dutch) solving the big problem of the unrecyclable plastic & textile waste, regionally.

I wish you all a happy, circular and above all collaborative 2023!

Jan Jaap