Hanswerner Mackwitz

Hanswerner Mackwitz (born August 24, 1945 in Minden ; † August 20, 2010 in Vienna ) was a German chemist and environmental activist .

Mackwitz published books, reports and specialist articles and produced television documentaries and plays. In the 1980s he was an advisor to the Greens in the German Bundestag and political advisor to the Greens in Parliament in Austria. His preferred topics were natural product chemistry and bio-based plastics , bio- cascading , bio- mimicry and the cradle-to-cradle concept of his long-time companion Michael Braungart .

Life

Hanswerner Mackwitz was born on August 24, 1945 in Minden as one of three children. In the post-war chaos, the family moved to the area around Berchtesgaden . After dropping out of school, he gained his first experience as a chemical unskilled worker at the companies Ciba-Geigy and Hoffmann-La Roche . After graduating from secondary school, I studied chemistry at the University of Basel and attended numerous lectures in the field of political science , theater studies and philosophy . During his studies Mackwitz was chairman of the student body and directed the Stadttheater zu Basel .

Environmental movement

In the 1970s he became one of the pioneers of the environmental movement in German-speaking countries. With “Rethinking-Umschwenken” he managed a successful exhibition and campaign in Switzerland. He was involved in Austria in 1978 in the fight against the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant or the Hainburg power plant during the Au occupation in 1984. During the dioxin accident in Seveso in 1976 , a reporting team under his leadership played a key role in uncovering the events.

Now a respected figure in science and the scene, Mackwitz was appointed to work in the German Bundestag in Bonn and later in his adopted country of Austria as an advisor to the “Greens” in the Austrian parliament in Vienna. His numerous television documentaries on environmental issues became important contemporary documents, as did his interviews with personalities such as Ivan Illich , Erwin Chargaff and Ernst Friedrich Schumacher .

Mackwitz was considered an expert in natural product chemistry. In a 1000-page compendium for the European Union , the state of the art on safe materials for industrial use was recorded. His passion for plastics made from renewable raw materials came to fruition in the Loop Linz project .

He also worked intensively for the development of an innovative moth protection for sheep's wool insulation materials - with a comprehensive final documentation of a research project with the house of the future in order to open up a larger market for the valuable "natural building material" sheep's wool .

In another research project, Mackwitz was apparently devoting himself to something that he had worked against all his life: nuclear power. This ironically meant working title was not about splitting the atom, but the fruit kernel. Through "bio-cascading" the full diversity of materials was opened up and made usable through gradual recycling. In experiments, cherry, plum, peach and other kernels were processed into high-quality oils through to base plates and powders for gentle tooth polishing. Complete use of the core raw material, which is otherwise regarded as waste, had been achieved experimentally. This project was awarded the Austrian ÖGUT Environmental Prize 2007 as a pioneering “factory of the future” .

Teaching

Mackwitz has taught at numerous universities and colleges in Germany and abroad, for example in Tulln and Wieselburg in Austria, at the Birkenfeld environmental campus in Germany, in the United States and in Japan. The beginning of the solar age and the replacement of "Homo Petrolicus" by "Homo Solaris" were the great goals of his work. His research institute alchemia-nova enabled him to bring the knowledge he had gathered closer to companies in innovation projects.

Movies

Naughty Like Oscar is a children's and animated film that was made at the end of the 1990s. The film conveys in cunning and funny pictures how a boy with the help of his cheeky cat Oscar frees the world from garbage, garbage and toxic chemicals. Naughty Like Oscar was awarded at the 1992 Festival du Court-Métrage de Clermont-Ferrand , France and at the Children's Film Festival in Cairo in 1993.

Honors

He was posthumously awarded honorary membership for his work in setting up the NetzwerkstAd .

The alchemia-nova Institute for innovative plant research headed by Mackwitz was awarded the Austrian ÖGUT environmental prize in 2007.

Publications

His critical attitude towards petrochemistry and his passion for natural products chemistry resulted in numerous publications:

• With Barbara Köszegi: Chemistry time bomb . 1983. ISBN 978-3-85368-939-4
• With Adam Adler: eco tricks and biosafety . 1990. ISBN 978-3-7015-0124-3
• With Wolfgang Hingst: lingerie, our clothes: fashion, poisons, eco-look . Campus, 1998

Individual evidence

1. ↑ intercab.org ( Memento of the original from March 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed October 23, 2010.  
2. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Bio-Cascading Fruit Stones, alchemia-nova  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

Web links

• Research Institute for Innovative Phytochemistry (German / English)
• Obituary for Hanrwerner Mackwitz
• Alchemia Nova