The Strategy for Plastics Innovation (SPI) has been informed by workshops and roundtables across the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the federal government. Outputs from those events are listed in the following DOE and stakeholder reports.

Strategic Resources

Below are various resources that can help you learn more about the SPI.

The Bioenergy Technologies Office and Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO) hosted the “Plastics for a Circular Economy Workshop.” Stakeholders from industry, national laboratories, academia, and government agencies contributed to the conclusions in the workshop report.

The Reducing EMbodied-energy And Decreasing Emissions (REMADE) Institute hosted a workshop on “Remanufacturing, Repair, and Reuse” and published a technology roadmap.

DOE’s Office of Science Basic Energy Sciences program hosted a “Roundtable on Chemical Upcycling of Polymers” to identify the fundamental challenges and research opportunities that could accelerate the transformation of discarded plastics to higher-value fuels, chemicals, and materials.

The DOE’s Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program hosted a workshop on “Genome Engineering for Material Synthesis” to explore opportunities and challenges for leveraging synthetic biology and computational tools in the synthesis of novel biomaterials.

The National Academy of Sciences, with DOE involvement, held a workshop “Closing the Loop on the Plastics Dilemma.”

The Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management’s Office of Clean Coal and Carbon Management published their strategic vision, highlighting future efforts on co-firing plastics, CO2 conversion to plastics, and manufacturing of plastics from coal and byproducts, and released a “Hydrogen Strategy” highlighting the need to address several key challenges, including gasification of plastics.