Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP 29-10-2022 - Arhive
Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP
-Spain chemicals sales up 18% in 2022 to €91bn but output nearly flat – FEIQUE
Revenue from Spanish chemicals sales is expected to rise 17.6% in 2022, year on year, to €90.8bn on the back of higher selling prices but output will be almost flat, with an uptick of just 0.2%, the country’s chemicals trade group FEIQUE said on Thursday.
The trade group said Spanish chemicals – including the pharmaceutical industry – would be able to “stave off” recession in 2022 but added uncertainty in 2023 will be the predominant feature for the industry unless “urgent measures” to help energy-intensive sectors cope with high costs are passed.
Output growth was healthy during the first half of 2022, said FEIQUE, but it “collapsed” in the second half as companies straggled to manage their input costs as energy prices rocketed.
This factor, said FEIQUE, affected mostly base chemicals, more directly affected by energy costs due to their energy intensity. In this sub-sector, production has decreased in 2022 up to six percentage points, said FEIQUE. Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP
“We have a great challenge before us, which began in 2021 due to the constant increase in the price of gas and accelerated after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia,” said Teresa Rasero, the head of Air Liquide in Iberia and appointed FEIQUE’s president earlier on Thursday.
“This circumstance continues to cause not only exorbitant energy prices but also risks of shortages in multiple raw materials that are found in the main value chains of the economy.”
Rasero added that the EU and the Spanish cabinet should agree on measures to limit the price of natural gas, either by setting a maximum purchase price, through joint purchasing, or by direct interventions in the European natural gas prices benchmark, the TTF.
For chemicals, the price cap on natural gas should also apply the chemicals sectors which use natural gas as a feedstock for production, and not only for energy production.
“This input [natural gas] is used in various processes for the manufacture of numerous essential products such as ammonia, ethylene, or methanol, and necessary, in turn, to produce fertilizers, agri-food CO2 [carbon dioxide], adblue [diesel exhaust fluid], synthetic fabrics, paints, insulation, detergents, polymers, and automotive components or lubricants, among others,” said FEIQUE.
“Its use is notable in the value chain of agriculture, transport, hygiene, or food, as well as in other areas of application, including multiple intermediate products on which the activity of many economic sectors depends.”
Out of the nearly €91bn in chemicals sales, close to €60bn of them were destined for export, said FEIQUE.
-Persian Gulf states step up waste tire recycling efforts
Companies of the region detail operations to address build-up of ELTs
Persian Gulf states are stepping up efforts to address increasing problems around the management of end-of-life tires (ELTs) across the region, a Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) meeting has heard.
Figures presented at the 18 Oct meeting of the BIR tire & rubber committee in Dubai showed that the Persian Gulf has 880,000 tonnes of ELT arisings per year, led by Saudi Arabia accounting for 65% and followed by the UAE at 19%.
In Saudi Arabia, Global Environmental Management Services (GEMS) is working to improve ELT collection with ‘centralised collection hubs and sorting stations’, reported its managing director Abdullah Ahmed Alqurashi. Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP
Addressing , Alqurashi said Saudi Arabia generates 572,000 tonnes of scrap tires per year.
Of that amount, 58% come from personal vehicles, 15% from light commercial vehicles and 27% from heavy duty vehicles.
Set to reach 2 million tonnes by 2050, most of ELTs go to landfill or are being dumped, said the MD, who emphasised GEMS’ efforts to address the situation.
“To have a fully fledged solution, we are improving mechanical shredding and investing in pyrolysis plants across the kingdom,” he explained.
The UAE faces similar challenges, according to Zaid Bdour, plant manager at the Gulf Rubber Co. (GRC).
Showing “before and after” photos of a landfill site in the past decade, he highlighted the comprehensive removal of millions of tires in the country.
GRC, according to Bdour, currently has five facilities for crumbing, granulation and other processes. A pyrolysis project has also been proposed but has yet to be established.
“Recycling made business sense because the value of tires in a landfill site was around $70 (€70) per tonne, granules were worth $325 per tonne and moulded products around $870,” he said.
According to Bdour, one of the major challenges for ELT management in the UAE is the volatility of used-tire prices.
This, he explained, is due to lucrative exports to Pakistan and India and “fierce” competition with imported tire products subsidised by the country-of-origin.
Also presenting at the BIR session was Khaled Jamal Chaaroui, general manager of EPSCO Global General Trading in Kuwait, which started operation at a landfill site in 2016.
-Close collaboration on new finishing line
Long-established woven fabrics leader anchors its presence in Hauts-de-France with the assistance of Monforts.
Dickson-Constant has recently opened its second brand new plant in northern France in response to growing demand for its range of well-known technical fabrics.
New technology installed at the plant includes a highly-customised Monforts Montex 8500 stenter, with the specific lay-out of the line the result of a long collaboration between the German machine builder and the French sun protection and outdoor upholstery fabrics specialist.
Know-how
The oldest weaving operation in France, with roots dating back to 1836, Dickson-Constant specialises in woven acrylic fabrics and has been part of Glen Raven since 1998. Its Dickson-branded solar protection and flooring materials and Sunbrella home upholstery and market-leading marine industry fabrics are renowned for their quality and durability.
Representing a €40 million investment, the new Dickson-Constant plant, located in Hordain, Hauts-de-France, builds on many of the proprietary practices and the processing know-how established over many decades at the company’s existing plant less than an hour’s drive away in Wasquehal, France. Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP
Located along the A2 motorway that links Paris and Brussels, Hordain has instant connections to Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the UK and Germany, ensuring very quick deliveries throughout Europe.
Various locations were considered for the plant prior to Hordain being chosen, and its selection has provided a significant boost to the region’s textile industry. In the absence of suitable technical textile training in the immediate vicinity of Hauts-de-France, Dickson-Constant has further created a training centre to fully train up its 75 new employees at the plant, in addition to other new textile technologists entering the industry.
With many new weaving machines, the new Hordain plant increases the company’s overall manufacturing capacity by 50% while providing the flexibility to accommodate more medium-sized orders and meet requests from certain customers for full exclusivity in respect of specific performance fabric ranges.
Non-stop
The seven-chamber Montex stenter for drying, heat-setting and polymerizing applied resins has a maximum working width of 2.2 metres. It is installed in line with the washing compartments and is equipped with special entrance and exit fabric accumulators to enable non-stop processing during batch changes, in addition to an integrated vertical infrared dryer and exhaust air cleaning. Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP
Two Mahlo weft straighteners also ensure maximum regularity of fabric batches at strategic points in the line.
PepsiCo AMESA introduced recycled plastic bottles (rPET) across portfolios in South Africa and Bangladesh and is set to launch rPET in Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, and Pakistan by end of 2022
First large-scale food and beverage company to locally introduce 100% rPET in Qatar and Kuwait in 2022 followed by other GCC countries by 2023
Dubai, United Arab Emirates: PepsiCo is introducing bottles made from recycled plastic[2] in several of the region’s markets across beverage brands like Aquafina and Pepsi. With only 1 country in the region allowing the use of recycled plastic in food and beverage packaging in 2020, PepsiCo continues its journey of policy unlocks aiming to introduce recycled bottles across 10 AMESA countries by 2023. PepsiCo aims to continue its progress towards expanding plastic collection programs to 14 AMESA markets by developing recycling infrastructure through advocacy and partnerships by 2023. The reiterated sustainability commitment comes as PepsiCo marks one year of its strategic, end-to-end transformation, called pep+, which puts sustainability and human capital at the center of how the company will create growth and value. From sourcing ingredients to making and selling its products more sustainably, pep+ connects the future of its business with the future of the planet. Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP
Envisioning a world where packaging never becomes waste, PepsiCo’s pep+ ambition aims to design 100% of its packaging to be recyclable, compostable, biodegradable or reusable by 2025 and to cut virgin plastic from non-renewable sources per serving across its global beverages and convenient foods portfolio by 50% by 2030. PepsiCo already introduced recycled plastic in some beverage brands in South Africa and Bangladesh in 2022 and is gearing to bring in recycled plastic bottles across Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Pakistan, and other AMESA countries by 2023.
PepsiCo is also the first food and beverage company to locally introduce 100% rPET in Qatar and Kuwait in 2022, followed by other GCC countries by 2023. In Egypt, as policymakers lay out an ambitious COP27 roadmap, PepsiCo launched the biggest PET collection program in Egypt ‘Recycle for Tomorrow’ in 2021 and is now introducing locally manufactured recycled plastic bottles as part of its efforts to build a circular economy by 2030. PepsiCo wants to work with bottlers and partners in each country to help build a circular and inclusive value chain in line with its global pep+ goals.
Eugene Willemsen, CEO, PepsiCo AMESA said, “Packaging circularity has been a key priority of PepsiCo’s pep+ sustainability goals. Our partnership with region-wide governments and industry coalitions has helped successfully unlock use of rPET across 13 AMESA countries by 2022. Recognizing one-year of pep+, we continue our journey towards circularity with a renewed vigor of expanding recycled plastic into 10 AMESA countries by 2023 in PepsiCo brands through consumer education. Our commitment to multi-stakeholder collaboration and accelerated investment in recycling infrastructure will advance our efforts in waste management and packaging circularity.”
PepsiCo in AMESA has supported 107,000 tonnes of plastic bottles and 19,000 tonnes of Multi Layered Plastic (MLP) films to be collected and recycled across seven countries as per 2021 estimates. Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP
This was delivered through mass collection partnerships, deploying reverse vending machines, launching incentive programs, and partnering with recyclers for ensuring the beneficial use of collected plastics. Earlier this year, in the capacity of Expo 2020 Dubai’s Official Beverage and Snack Partner, PepsiCo helped to reduce the use of single-use plastic, diverted at least 85% of on-site waste and avoided more than 500,000 plastic bottles through Aquafina water stations as well as by replacing plastic bottles with Aquafina aluminum cans and glass bottles.
-New plastics prepare for takeoff
If new plastics are an industry preparing for takeoff, then they are taxiing down the runway with the accelerator at full throttle. But the wheels haven’t yet left the ground: cost, production and disposal issues are preventing lift-off.
Existing petroleum-based plastics are durable, lightweight and ideal for use as food packaging – but their role in climate change, waste, marine pollution and poor air quality means they need to be phased out. It’s time for new plastics to take flight.
The leading contenders to replace petroleum-based plastics are bioplastics. These have a similar molecular structure and qualities but are derived from natural resources such as plant-based starches and vegetable oils, and/or will decompose when disposed of properly.
Global production of bioplastics is expected to double from around 2.4 million tonnes in 2021 to around 5.2 million tonnes in 2023. Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP
Partly driving this demand, several food industries, especially those involving single-use applications, are starting to use bioplastics. Last year, Coca-Cola announced a limited run of a 100-percent plant-based plastic bottle. Three years ago, Qantas ran an experimental zero-waste flight.
Among the most studied bioplastics are poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). Both are polymers: long chains of repeating molecular subunits. PLA is assembled, using conventional chemistry techniques, from renewable ingredients, particularly sugar and starch. It is sometimes used as a clear plastic tub for take-away salad or as a bubble-tea cup.
PHAs are a family of related polymers assembled by various bacteria (for example Alcaligenes eutrophus and Ralstonia eutropha) as energy-storage molecules. PHAs are produced by fermenting sugar or lipids with the bacteria and extracting the polymer from the cells. PHA disposable knives and forks might accompany airline meals.
Traditional plastics are not often recycled and are discarded or incinerated with other solid waste. But PLA and PHAs are biodegradable – they are broken down by microbes in the right environmental conditions. PLA is biodegradable under industrial composting conditions (at a temperature of about 58°C) but may remain for up to 1,000 years in the ocean. PHAs are biodegradable in compost and also in marine environments.
With about 450,000 tonnes produced in 2021, PLA is among the largest produced biodegradable polymers in the world. But bioplastics face many challenges before they can be more widely adopted. One of these challenges is cost.
At around US$10 per kilogram, PLA’s price is still high. Increasing production efficiency and competition will likely drive prices down. Similarly, new techniques to produce PHAs more cheaply are being explored. One research direction is to produce PHAs using inexpensive carbon feedstocks such as crude glycerol, a byproduct of biodiesel.
Another challenge is growing the feedstock sustainably. Agricultural activities associated with the production of PLA emit greenhouse gases, cause water pollution and occupy arable land. Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP
One way to make PLA production more environmentally friendly is by optimising the conversion process of PLA. One study showed the conversion of the source material to lactic acid releases more than 50 percent of the carbon dioxide from the entire process. This step is a prime target for optimisation ideas.
Other challenges hindering wider adoption include lack of adequate labelling or composting for bioplastics, and concern over contamination of recycling systems. PLA’s melting point is lower than for other plastics, so dedicated recycling plants are required to process it.
-24.3% German companies report obstacles seeking bank credit: ifo
It is becoming more difficult for companies in Germany to obtain new loans. Currently, 24.3 per cent of companies in ongoing credit negotiations report restraint on the part of banks – the highest proportion since 2017. This is a finding of surveys by the ifo Institute, an economic thinktank.
“The difficult economic climate is currently making banks more cautious,” Klaus Wohlrabe, head of surveys at ifo, said in a press release. “Without new loans, some companies might struggle for economic survival.”
Among service providers, as many as 28.8 per cent of companies seeking credit say that banks are reluctant to lend. In manufacturing, around 8.4 per cent of companies seeking credit in the chemical industry and 22.5 per cent of those seeking credit in the automotive industry reported difficulties. In trade, however, the figure was just under 15 per cent of these companies. Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP
Nevertheless, it is microenterprises and the solo self-employed that are most affected. Here, around one in two companies seeking credit reported that it is hard to obtain loans.
-Sidel launches its 1SKIN bottle, the future of sustainable packaging for sensitive drinks
Sidel has created 1SKIN™, a unique label-less recycled PET bottle. It has been designed to help Sidel’s customers achieve their sustainability goals and drive sales of high-end products. This is possible by combining distinctive shelf appeal with the highest eco credentials.
The one-litre bottle is destined for the booming market in sensitive juices, teas, and flavoured drinks. The new 1SKIN concept represents a breakthrough in sustainability and its streamlined design. Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP
Designed for easy recycling
Made with readily available 100 percent recycled PET (r-PET), 1SKIN has been designed by Sidel for easy recycling. The label-free bottle with its tethered cap can immediately enter the recycling stream without separating additional raw materials such as ink, glue, labels, or sleeves. Customers choosing 1SKIN will stay ahead of the main worldwide regulations and market trends for sustainable packaging.
Launched at the international beverages trade fair, drinktec in Germany in September, the bottle has attracted interest from customers from all over the world seeking to make their packaging more sustainable. Many major brands are embracing higher sustainability standards, driven by consumer influence and growing legislation to encourage recycling.
“We are delighted with the positive response to 1SKIN,” says Vincent Le Guen, Vice President – Packaging at Sidel. “We have demonstrated that it is possible to combine outstanding design and strong sustainability credentials in one affordable premium bottle.”
Appealing looks and drinking experience
1SKIN is made to stand out on shelves in one of the fastest-growing and most competitive beverage segments. The bottle delivers an appealing drinking experience, with an ergonomic grip for comfortable pouring. It has a wide neck and a cap lock feature to keep the open bottle top away from the consumer’s face.
On the bottle’s label-free surface, there are multiple options to use different fonts and textures, with the transparency enabling great opportunities for natural light and shadow play. The ultra-precise graphic elements are created using Sidel’s most advanced mould technologies combined with its blow moulding expertise. QR or bar codes can be printed on the bottle closure to inform consumers or enable individual unit sales.
The bottle design guarantees safety and protects the integrity of products with a long shelf life. Sidel’s patented Starlite™ Sensitive base technology combines a premium glass-like design with optimised weight and performance on high-speed lines.
Immediate availability on new or existing lines
Sidel can include the 1SKIN solution in new equipment or add it to existing lines using its dedicated line conversion services. The line equipment is adapted accordingly, ensuring a quick and efficient start-up. The bottle’s optimised neck requires fewer raw materials and can reduce production costs.
-Stabilizers for Polyolefin Recycling
At K 2022, Brüggemann presented three new additives for improved stabilization of polyolefin recyclates. These additives are said to result in recyclates with good mechanical and processing properties. All grades are supplied as dust-free additive blends in compacted granule form. Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP
Two of the new stabilizers are intended for polypropylene recycling. Bruggolen TP-R2090 can be used to recycle post-industrial and post-consumer waste, whereas Bruggolen TP-R8895, through its increased acid scavenger content, is especially suitable for recycling polypropylene from battery cases. Both additives result in recyclates of quality that cannot be achieved via conventional re-stabilization.
For polyethylene recycling, Brüggemann has developed Bruggolen TP-R2162, which also contains the new repair technology and is particularly suitable for LLDPE recyclates used in film extrusion. Here, the repair mechanism results in film with increased initial mechanical strength and a significantly reduced number of defects. Laboratory tests, for example, show an increase of around 25% in tensile strength and 10% in elongation at break, even at minimal dosage levels of 0.3%.
These outstanding properties of the polyolefin recyclates are made possible by a specially developed technology. For the first time, it is possible to repair defects to the molecular chains that occur during processing and subsequent use and which impair quality.
Recycled-plastic – Stabilizers-PE-PP