Daily News

More than 110 participants from 18 countries met last week in Nuremberg (and online) for two days to report on success stories and developments in the realm of sustainable plastics and the toys made from them.

WinCup (Stone Mountain, GA, USA), recently announced that the company has sold 1 billion phade® straws, the world’s first marine biodegradable, home and industrial compostable drinking straw.

Ingevity (North Charleston, SC, USA) will participate in the European Coatings Show 2023 in Nuremburg, Germany, from March 27-30, to highlight its Capa® caprolactone high performance polyol technology and the company’s expanded vegetable oil-based offerings that can be used to enhance coating formulations.

OrthoLite®, the global leader of sustainable, performance and comfort insoles and footwear materials solutions, and Novamont, the international leader in the development, production and eco-design of biodegradable and compostable bioplastics and biochemicals, announce an exclusive partnership in the creation of OrthoLite Cirql™, the world’s first circular foam material solution for footwear.

Beauty brands are seeking sustainable alternatives for conventional plastic packaging – but high-end brands have high-end demands.

Lignin is arguably the most abundant component of biomass that most people have never heard of. That may be about to change.

DSM Engineering Materials (Heerlen, the Netherlands) recently announces its partnership with sustainability-focused startup DiFOLD (Sofia, Bulgaria), developing foldable reusable products.

Neste (Espoo, Finland), the world’s leading producer of sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel, and renewable feedstock solutions for various polymers and chemicals industry uses, is aiming to establish an algae pilot production facility in Spain to further strengthen the growth of its global raw material pool.

PA Consulting (London, United Kingdom) and PulPac, the Swedish R&D and IP company (Gothenburg) behind the proprietary production process of Dry Molded Fiber, have launched the Bottle Collective.

Sustainability is “the” topic. A significant contribution to sustainability goals may derive from the use of totally or partially biobased polyamides.

Solvay (Brussels, Belgium), a leading global supplier of specialty materials, has announced that the production of its hydroquinone (HQ) and hydroquinone monomethylether (MeHQ) in Saint-Fons, France has been accredited to comply with the mass balance accounting regime of the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) PLUS system.

Teknor Apex (Pawtucket, RI, USA) is excited to announce the new Monprene® S3 CP-15170 BLK, an eco-conscious thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) made with 35% sustainable content that includes UBQ™ and post-consumer recycled material.

Braskem (São Paulo, Brazil), the global leader in biobased polymer production, has joined the Renewable Carbon Initiative as part of its commitment to achieving carbon neutrality.

Dow (Midland, MI, United States) and LVMH Beauty, a division of LVMH (Paris, France), the world leader in luxury and home to 75 iconic brands, will collaborate to accelerate the use of sustainable packaging across LVMH’s perfume and cosmetic products.

Avantium (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), a leading technology company in renewable chemistry, and Henkel (Düsseldorf, Germany), a global leader of adhesives, sealants, and functional coatings, and leading manufacturer of well-known consumer brands, have signed an offtake agreement for five years, under which Avantium will supply Henkel with FDCA (furandicarboxylic acid) produced in Avantium’s FDCA Flagship Plant, currently under construction in Delfzijl, the Netherlands.

UBQ Materials (Tel Aviv, Israel), climate tech developer of advanced materials made from organic and unrecyclable waste, recently announced that Rimax (Yumbo, Colombia) has launched the first consumer pet line “Made with UBQ™”, which will initially be available in Colombia and then roll-out globally.

Environmental commitment is one of the hottest topics for 2023. Hyundai Motor Group and Hyundai America Technical Center showcased their respective activities at the Hyundai Open Innovation Lounge in Seoul, Korea. The Palisade concept vehicle features Lingrove’s innovative, high-performance, plant-based ekoa® for a luxury and interactive finish in the interior of the car.

On January 4, 2023, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company unveiled a demonstration tire comprised of 90% sustainable materials. This demonstration tire has passed all applicable regulatory testing as well as Goodyear’s internal testing.

Wood, the global consulting and engineering company, will work with CuanTec Ltd., a Scottish circular economy business, to develop cutting edge separation facilities that will process shellfish waste to extract chitin, a naturally occurring, 100% compostable biopolymer with a wide range of applications in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industries.

Today, Fashion for Good (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) launches the Home-Compostable Polybag Project, a pilot to test alternatives to conventional single-use polybags. Orchestrated by Fashion for Good in partnership with C&A (Vilvoorde, Belgium) and Levi Strauss & Co. (San Francisco, CA, USA), this six-month project uses novel bags from Fashion for Good innovators TIPA Corp. (Hod HaSharon, Israel) and Greenhope (West Jakarta, Indonesia).

The Hamburg-based start-up traceless materials (Germany) has developed hooks made from their material innovation traceless®. During a pilot phase over the upcoming months, fashion retailer C&A (Vilvoorde, Belgium) uses the traceless® hooks as a replacement for conventional plastic hooks in its store in Hamburg Altona.

European Bioplastics presented at the 17th EUBP Conference (6+7 Dec. 2022, Berlin, Germany) a positive outlook for the global bioplastics industry. After a stagnation of the overall plastics production in 2020, mainly due to challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, there is now a new momentum for global bioplastics production.

Researchers from Biorizon (Bergen op Zoom, the Netherlands) co-initiator VITO (Mol, Belgium) and chemical company Kaneka Belgium (Westerlo) joined forces to conduct research to create a lignin-based polymer that outperformed its fossil-based counterpart in terms of thermal stability and UV-blocking properties.

Biowert (Brensbach, Germany) processes grass from the Odenwald (Germany) into biogas, fertilizer, and an extremely robust plastic. The company is thus a pioneer in the circular economy – and has know-how that is in demand nationwide.

Incorporating sustainability and provenance into branding has been key to changes being made at luxury drinking chocolate manufacturer Cocoa Canopy (Weybridge, UK), with the help of compostable packaging provider Futamura (Wigton, UK).

Heartland (Detroit, MI, USA) has completed its Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to determine the carbon footprint of Imperium Filler from cradle to gate. This research shows that every 1 kg of Imperium Filler removes 3 kg of CO2e.

Something not deemed possible has become a reality: fully biobased and biodegradable glass fibre reinforced compounds.

The launch of a new bioplastics pilot plant in the Flanders region in Belgium will enable a new bioplastics production technology, ready for implementation at industrial scale.

Avantium (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), a leading technology company in renewable chemistry, has published Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data for its plantMPG™ (plant-based mono-propylene glycol) from its Ray Technology™: a chemical intermediate used in a variety of applications including in functional fluids and unsaturated polyester resins.

K 2022 visitors can look forward to new Clariant (Muttenz, Switzerland) additive solutions to progress more sustainable plastics and reduce resource use.