Knowledge and realization

Dear Readers,

In one of the in Germany probably best known children‘s program „Die Sendung mit der Maus (The show with the mouse)“ an interesting series was shown in the last weeks. An house in Switzerland, near Zurich, was built in such a way that it could be disassembled into its individual parts at the end of its useful life - without destroying them, but reusing them in other construction projects. Many components of this house came from recycled materials, some of them from very innovative, interesting solutions. Still other parts were rescued from demolished houses, which again wonderfully reprocessed spread a very unique flair. All very beautiful, individual ... and, let‘s be honest: the knowledge of doing something environmentally sensible also gives a good feeling. What do I want to say with that? Actually, we have enough solutions and ideas at our disposal to stop environmental destruction, i.e. we know how to do it. So what is stopping us from implementing it? This is an exciting question, especially in light of the upcoming federal election in Germany, which is also being followed with interest around the world.

This issue also features a whole range of very interesting solutions for reusing materials that have reached the end of their useful life, whether it‘s the reuse of old tetrapack packaging, disused wind turbines (see our cover story p. 6) or phosphate recovery from sewage sludge (article starting on p. 22).

We wish you a few thoughtful, imaginative and interesting hours while reading this recovery.