LATEP celebrates its twentieth anniversary with a conference on circular economy

The rector will chair the conference, in which the different lines of research of the Polymer Technology Laboratory (LATEP) and other research centers in the framework of sustainability will be discussed.

Raul Garcia Hemonnet

The objective of the 'Circular Economy Conference in Plastics. Present and Future Challenges' is to celebrate 20 years of LATEP, which constitutes “an example of university-business collaboration, a model that is still scarce,” says Carlos Domínguez, director of LATEP. The Circular Economy approach has been chosen because it constitutes one of the laboratory's main lines of research, “we have been pursuing this line of great importance for society for years. The polymers that we investigate, specifically the polyolefin group, constitute 50% of plastic waste,” says Domínguez.

The conference will cover aspects such as the treatment of waste generated by fishing nets, the circularity of plastics, or the management of vehicle plastics, among others. “We want the day to be informative and for all sectors of society to be involved in what we are going to discuss,” says Professor Rafael García, general coordinator of LATEP.

The event is sponsored by the company Repsol, with which LATEP has been working for 20 years, and which has been key in both the origin and development of LATEP. The Circular Economy manager and the commercial director of polyolefins of the company will participate in the conference, along with them other experts such as the general director of Plastics Europe or researchers from LATEP, IMDEA (Madrid Institute of Advanced Studies, and representatives of companies and associations ECOEMBES, AIMPLAS and ANAIP. LATEP Conference

20 years of public-private collaboration

The LATEP, which began operating two decades ago, has collaborated with a large number of companies practically all over the world, has more than 130.000 tests carried out and global income for the URJC of more than 8 million euros, which makes this laboratory a reference not only at the URJC but also internationally in testing and research on plastic materials.

Among the latest milestones of LATEP, it should be noted that its director has recently been invited as speaker to the international conference Ozpipe 2024, which will be held in November of this year in Sydney (Australia).