So my name is Jos and I’m working on research in circular economy and automotive sector. And I would like to know your point of view. If you accept, I’m going to record our conversation, transcribe it and put the transcription with a pseudonym, not your real name, in a repository of text documents that will be used for the research. If we do this and you change your mind and no longer want to participate, get in touch with us and we will immediately remove your interview from the repository. I’m leaving you information sheet with contact information. So then please tell me your name and that you accept.
My name is Sarah Garen and I accept the terms.
Okay. Thank you. Sarah, the first question, can you tell me a bit about your educational and professional background and interests?
Yeah, I did my master in printed electronics in Germany, and now I’m working in the industry. So yeah, it’s called Vita Technology. It is located in Munster and we are focusing on printing flexible and also rigid using a screen printing techniques.
What is your area of expertise.
Generally about printed electronics. So from thinking about the prototype, how it can work, which material we have to choose and especially how we can process with our available techniques and facilities to get the final production for the customer and mainly in the mass production. So we have a roll to roll facilities also. So there are lots of challenges that we have to deal with.
The theme of this conference is the electronics the future of electronics reshaped. Yes. What does the idea of reshaping electronics for the future mean to you?
I guess if you know exactly what printed electronics can do, so it somehow is the answer. Because till now everything was completely rigid, and especially the production and manufacturing was really energy consuming. And it was it had a really high prices. But by using this printed electronics and finding more and more applications for it so it can somehow replace it, or maybe we can use them in parallel.
What do you think is the relationship between electronics and sustainability?
About the sustainability. So it’s because it’s lots of materials that they are somehow most of them they are not eco friendly. So we have to think about the lifetime of our product as well. So it’s not just one time using and then throwing away because it’s really dangerous to like our environmental thing. And we also focus on using the materials which are based on like water based. And they are not really dangerous for like oceans, animals and so on. And oh, and also it’s also very good if everybody, especially in this world, taking care of how they can reduce the waste and also how they can recycle because it’s also a new area and maybe people are not taking care of this at the very beginning.
Can you define a circular economy in your own words? What is that?
It’s difficult to say circular economy. What I can understand is that the no. Everything in nature should is like in the circle. So it’s important that if we use something, we can recycle it somehow. Or we think about when we start from one point, how we can end it up to something more eco friendly. And yeah, thinking about other natures as well.
Do you participate in your life circular economy in any aspects of your life?
If if I understood the meaning of the word itself, yes. I just try to not use something that I have to throw it away. So I mostly try to get something that it has a good lifetime. And if something is broken, I try to fix it and use it again. And yeah, even food. I try to just for example, by an amount that I know that I can use or like if it the rest thing, I will just freeze it or I will just cook it with two and not a meal or something. So not wasting too much. Yeah.
Do you think electronics can play a role in making the car industry more sustainable?
Um, like automotive sector, you mean? Yes. I cannot tell about this. Exactly. Yeah, maybe I’m not that expert in.
Yeah. Okay. The same question about more circularity, more circular economy. Do you think the electronics can play a role in making the industry more circular?
Yes, because nowadays we have in all applications in our daily life, we use different electronics and it’s becoming more and more of usage of these kind of things. So it’s if you I mean, if the producer manufacturer are thinking in advance about how sustainable it can be, so it can make a lot of difference in the whole story. Yeah.
Do you currently own a car?
No I don’t.