British Plastics & Rubber - Latest News

Closed Loop wins award for recycled bottle

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 23, 2010

UK-based recycled plastic processor Closed Loop was recently presented with the award of ‘Recycled Packaging of the Year', for its bottle for the Britvic Drench product. The bottle is produced with 10 per cent recycled polyethylene terephthalate, (rPET).

According to Plasteurope.com, the bottle has been commissioned by Britvic as a trial for approximately 1 million 500 ml units. The product marks the first time that a British drinks brand has gone to a plastics supplier for UK-sourced, post-consumer, recycled PET. Estimates suggest that Closed Loop will supply Britvic with over 4,000 tonnes per year of rPET.

The awards, which were held on July 15, were presented in the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, London. Hosting the evening was actor and comedian Hugh Dennis. Approximately 600 people attended the ceremony, representing industries across the country that have begun to take a greener approach to production.

First carbon labelled polymer launched

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 23, 2010

Polymer producer Axion of Manchester has introduced what it says is the first product on the UK and European markets with the carbon reduction label. Axpoly PS13 post-consumer recycled polystyrene is derived from retail packaging waste, specifically garment hangers.

The product has gained PAS 2050 certification, as well as the carbon reduction label in June following a comprehensive reduction of the product's carbon footprint. Axion will extend the range in the future.

In comparison to the full supply chain for oil-based virgin polymer, Axpoly PS13 only creates 17 per cent of the usual emissions. This means that based on current output of Axpoly and also Axfoil - the sheet form of the polystyrene - it saves around 15,000 tonnes per annum of CO₂ emissions when compared to the same volume of virgin polystyrene.

As part of the initiative to cut carbon emission, staff at Axion took part in a course at the Carbon Trust on specialist carbon calculation software that enabled them to complete a full ‘cradle to gate' life-cycle analysis on its operations and those of its raw material supplier. The firm has also committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 10 per cent in 2012 and 15 per cent by 2015.

The polystyrene can be used in a variety of closed-loop recycling applications for new products, such as flat screen TV panels, washing machine components and horticultural pots.

General Manager of The Carbon Trust Footprinting Company, Euan Murray commented: "By adopting the Carbon Reduction Label, Axion Polymers has committed to reduce the carbon footprint of its Axpoly PS13 product in two years. Not only does that make environmental sense it makes economic sense, because of the energy and waste reductions it will help to deliver."

Loan funding available for mixed plastics recycling

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 20, 2010

A £2 million loan fund to boost mixed plastics recycling has been introduced today by government-funded recycling adviser WRAP. It aims to provide an incentive to recycle packaging such as yoghurt pots, margarine tubs and rigid plastic food trays - WRAP points out that at a time when prices for recovered PET plastics are at an all-time high, 90 per cent of mixed plastics in the waste stream are going to landfill.

The Mixed Plastics Loan Fund will provide capital support to potential investors in mixed plastics reprocessing capacity in the UK. It was created by WRAP to supply a source of funding which had been more difficult to secure through traditional financing sources due to the emerging nature of the industry. It has been set up as a loan fund, as opposed to offering a capital grant, so that investors can pay back the money after they start making a profit and WRAP can re-invest those funds into more support for the mixed plastics market.

Last summer, research undertaken by WRAP showed that it was technically possible, commercially viable and environmentally best to recycle mixed plastics on a large scale. WRAP followed this up with a capital grant awarded to recycling firm Greenstar WES which is now commissioning infrastructure for the UK's first mixed plastics reprocessing plant. It aims to deliver 20,000 tonnes of mixed plastics reprocessing capacity and be processing this material by March 2011.

WRAP's long-term goal is to see mixed plastics recycling capacity established and maintained purely by the private sector. Its 2008 - 11 business plan contains a target to deliver 40,000 tonnes of mixed plastics recycling capacity in the UK by 2011.

Around 1·7 million tonnes of mixed plastics are discarded by households in Britain each year and only around 20,000 tonnes of this is diverted from landfill. WRAP estimates that as high quality recycled plastics can sell at anywhere between 50 and 100 per cent of virgin polymer prices (at about £900 - £1,000/tonne), there is a potential market worth £250 - £500 million a year. Paul Davidson, WRAP's plastics sector specialist, said: "We know that the general public wants to recycle items such as plastic yoghurt pots, margarine tubs and rigid plastics like food trays, but at present there is only a 5 per cent recycling rate on these items."

More details on the Mixed Plastics Loan Fund.

Carbon cost of recycling PET drops at AWS

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 16, 2010

A study into the carbon penalty of recycling PET by AWS Eco Plastics has shown that it is substantially less than that of producing virgin PET, and getting lower.

AWS says that the study was carried out at its Hemswell plant over the past six months and showed that the carbon cost of producing its purePET 78 food grade rPET pellet is 254 kg/tonne compared to the carbon cost of producing virgin PET, which stands at 681 kg/tonne, having only recently been revised down from 927 kg/tonne.

AWS says these figures will improve further during 2011 to 213 kg/tonne, as the plant reaches its full capacity and enjoys the associated economies of scale. Based the current agreement to supply Artenius PET Packaging Europe with 13,000 tonnes of purePET 78 annually, AWS says it will be achieving a carbon saving during 2011, of 6,084 tonnes.

Polycarbonate panel in targa top keeps Bugatti drivers cool

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 16, 2010

Experience from its fixed polycarbonate glazing for car roofs has been used by Bayer MaterialScience in the production of a targa-type removable roof for a new model Bugatti sports car - although formed from sheet rather than by injection moulding.

See the full story here.

Evonik spins off carbon black business

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 13, 2010

Evonik Industries has spun off its carbon black production business as an independent subsidiary and is now considering what to do with it. The options are to float it as an independent business, form a partnership with another company, or to sell it. A decision is expected before the end of the second half of the year.

Evonik reckons to be the second largest carbon black manufacturer worldwide. It manufactures at 17 sites in 12 countries on four continents. In the last fiscal year some 1,700 employees generated sales of about Eur 1 billion.

Products of Evonik Carbon Black are used mainly as reinforcing fillers for rubber and as pigment blacks in plastics, speciality coatings, and colorants.

Kreyenborg recognises British PET recycling progress with a conference

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 13, 2010

A hotel in Newcastle has been chosen by the German Kreyenborg Group to host its Polyester Extrusion and Recycling Forum in September because "the United Kingdom has one of the most dynamic and rapidly evolving polyester extrusion and recycling industries in Europe."

Kreyenborg says that in recent years there has been a total transformation as the UK PET industry has evolved from a sector with few facilities and low collection rates to its current status. Investments have been made in collection systems, post consumer bottle sorting and washing facilities. This coupled with strong consumer demand for packaging containing recycled rPET has led to the development of the packaging, bottles, strapping tape and recycling industries.

The forum, billed as "the only UK based conference in 2010 dedicated to the polyester extrusion and recycling industries", will be held at the Novotel Hotel, Newcastle Airport on Wednesday, September 29. Details and registration at www.polymermeeting.com.

Information lacking on REACH for polymers

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 13, 2010

The polymer industries across Europe have a severe lack of specific information about REACH - the European Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals regulations - and what they do have varies from country to country. That is the conclusion so far of a European collaborative project focusing on the REACH legislation which has produced a situation report on its way to creating an e-learning tool.

The report lists current sources of information about the REACH legislation, as well as contact details for national help-lines. It is supported by a benchmarking survey which involved 135 detailed industry interviews, and highlights a lack of awareness or understanding of company responsibilities in more than 20 per cent of cases in countries including Italy, Portugal and Lithuania.

The consortium of national bodies which is six months into the two-year Eur 0·5 million programme consists of three British organisations - Smithers Rapra Technology, the British Plastics Federation and Rapra Limited - together with EuPC (Belgium), Proplast (Italy), CASO (Portugal), APINI (Lithuania) and MTU Balti Keskkonnafoorum (Estonia). It has found that companies currently tend to search out information about REACH either from their national associations or from nationally-based help-desks. Information on how to communicate with suppliers was most valuable to them, but almost 80 per cent of companies found difficulty in getting advice on who should be involved with REACH from within their companies.

The project has a website on www.polymer-reach.eu where anyone can register free of charge and download copies of the report and the benchmarking survey, and be kept up to date as the project progresses over the next 18 months.

Paper-making waste a source of PLA feedstock

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 13, 2010

Netherlands-based lactic acid producer Purac - a subsidiary of the CSM bakery supplies and food ingredients company - is investigating a new source of feedstock for biopolymers. It has joined a consortium that will develop a process to make feedstock for lactic acid from cellulosic waste derived from the pulp and paper industry.

Purac does not produce biopolymers itself, but is active in the production of lactides for polylactic acid. Joining the consortium will speed up Purac's program to use alternative non-food substrates such as agricultural by-products instead of sugars, glucose and tapioca starch as substrates for its fermentation processes.

The other partners in the programme are Crown Van Gelder, a paper producing company, and Bumaga, a development centre in the paper and board industry. The project is part of the Dutch Biorefinery program and partially funded by the Dutch Ministries of Economic Affairs and Agriculture, Nature and Fishery.

Now you can have a true high temperature orange, says BASF

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 7, 2010

An orange pigment said to overcome the problems normally associated with orange pigments in plastics processing has been introduced by BASF.

See the full story here.

Customised casting makes mobile hands light work

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 7, 2010

A customised rapid prototyping system was developed by IDC Models, the rapid prototyping and model making division of Industrial Design Consultancy, to produce a dummy hand for testing mobile phones. The brief from IndexSAR, which specialises in performance testing wireless systems, was to produce a model of a human hand which would incorporate carbon black to absorb the radio waves emitted by mobile phones during testing.

The difficulty was in achieving an even distribution of carbon throughout the model. The carbon powder can become very thick when mixed making it difficult to manipulate and creating air pockets within the mould. The hand was moulded in polyurethene elastomer to allow the fingers to flex and curve around a phone regardless of its shape or size. The technique settled on was a moulding system which encompassed half pressure casting and half vacuum-casting. The company's in-house stereolithography machine was used to produce durable master 3D parts from which to make the moulds, which also reduced lead times.

IDC Models has produced more than 20 phantom hand models for Indexsar in a variety of sizes according to the mobile phone design.

Profile inspection system brings orders for Flexi-Cell

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 7, 2010

Automotive sealing strip extruder Flexi-Cell UK improved its quality inspection with the installation of a Pixargus in-line dimensional stability monitoring system at its Dukinfield plant in Cheshire.

See the full story here.

Wilde adds Insight to Moldflow representation

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 7, 2010

Wilde Analysis - until recently Wilde FEA - has been appointed the only value added reseller for Autodesk's Moldflow Insight software in the UK and Ireland. This follows its appointment in November last year as the VAR for Moldflow Adviser.

Wilde Analysis is a multi-disciplined engineering consultancy providing simulation and calculation software alongside consulting and training services. Its portfolio includes ANSYS, Autodesk Moldflow, DEFORM, Mathcad, NISA, PLAXIS and ReliaSoft.

To support its additional responsibility for Moldflow, Wilde has increased its commercial and technical teams: senior engineer Neal Symms focuses on technical applications and services in plastic injection moulding simulation and Darren Wadsworth is the new business development manager for Autodesk Moldflow software and training.

Material suppliers 'over-using force majeure'

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

July 7, 2010

Force majeur has been an over-used and under-justified concept by companies supplying materials to packaging producers according to the Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen in Germany. The organisation says that while over the last few weeks packaging companies have experienced full order books, and have a promising third quarter, the industry is less satisfied with the disproportionately high cost of raw materials as well as the shortage of certain primary materials. The IK says that the clients of plastic packaging producers "have lost their patience with the current situation."

The situation has been made worse by "the numerable force majeure notifications" over the last six months and the IK says that the wording of some of the notifications does not always meet the requirements for a force majeure.

It argues that European jurisprudence has a very narrow definition of the term "force majeure" - "according to this definition the situation has to have an exterior cause, an 'act of God'. A mere assertion of technical problems with the equipment is not sufficient."

The IK says that failure to deliver materials cannot in general be classed as force majeure unless the failure of delivery is caused by an act of God. So the responsibility lies with the supplier, and commercial due diligence requires precautionary measures to be taken, for example contingency plans or the availability of storage facilities.

The organisation points out that European plastics processors have a considerable influence over the sales results of the raw material producers, and that for successful co-operation to continue there should be a safe supply chain throughout the raw material industry in addition to stable material prices.