The Global Organisation for PHA (GO!PHA) is a member-driven, non-profit initiative to accelerate the development of the PHA-platform industry.
The idea is to create a dedicated organization that advocates the adoption of natural, biodegradable and sustainable PHA polymers across industries and product segments was born during the 1st PHA – Platform World Congress in September 2018. PHA, a natural material with superior end-of-life options and a property profile that mimics so many different fossil polymers, needed more attention than it received.
The organization GO!PHA was officially established in June 2019. Within a year they grew to represent most of the PHA manufacturers and many upstream and downstream stakeholders with a strong global presence. They currently represent over 45 members covering both industry and academia that share and support their mission.
For more info about GO!PHA click HERE
Jan Ravenstijn studied Organic Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. During his career he worked 22 years for Dow Chemical and 11 years for DSM in thermoplastics, thermosets and elastomers businesses, both in R&D and in Manufacturing. He had several global R&D positions with labs all over the world during this period.
Since 2009 he continued his professional career as a global consultant in bio-based materials for large and small companies, bio-refineries, OEMs and investment and consulting companies. He also served as visiting-professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology, University College Dublin and the Tsinghua University in Beijing.
He has written several articles and columns on the bio-based industry for American, Asian and European journals, a bioplastics review report, a book on bioplastics for SMEs and contributed to many global market studies (2013 till 2022) as a member of the global expert team of the Nova Institute. Since May 2016 he serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Aachen Maastricht Institute for Bio-based Materials (AMIBM) and he is a co-founder and Advisory Board member of GO!PHA, the global organization for the proliferation of the PHA-platform.
We have signed up the Operation Clean Sweep® (OCS) pledge in Europe and we are implementing zero pellet loss measures.
There is a growing concern about the presence of plastics in the environment. Plastic litter could end up in soils, waterways and eventually the ocean, contributing to global pollution. The majority of plastics pollution is caused by mismanaged waste.
It requires all value chain actors, including manufacturers, brand owners, consumers, recyclers, as well as policy makers, to work together on delivering the necessary behavioural and systemic changes. Plastics are essential to our future. Our commitment as an industry is to relentlessly focus on ensuring that plastics continue to deliver much needed societal benefits without having a negative impact on the environment or health.
OCS provides solutions to prevent pellets ending up in the environment. This programme is good for the environment, for the safety of employees and for business in general.
Constant vigilance: Plastic pellets are not household waste. Their management and disposal are neither under the responsibility of consumers, nor of public authorities. They are raw materials. Their containment outside natural habitats falls almost exclusively under the vigilance of manufacturers and operators in the supply chain.
Operation Clean Sweep® fully meets the commitments made by world leaders in the plastics industry in the “Joint declaration for solutions to the problem of marine litter” signed in 2011, during the 5th International Conference on Marine Debris, Honolulu. The “stewardship of the transport and distribution of plastic resin pellets and products from supplier to customer to prevent product loss and the encouragement of our customers to do the same” are explicitly listed among the six major goals of the statement.
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