Plastics & Additives

Orlando-Bioplastics supplier NatureWorks LLC (Minnetonka, MN) is partnering with outside firms to augment reclaim and recycling of its material in the U.S. and Europe, saying the partner businesses will offer a competitive price for post-consumer polylactic acid (PLA) scrap, according to president and CEO Marc Verbruggen.

During an earnings call on Wednesday, March 10, executives of bioplastics developer Metabolix said their joint venture with Archer Daniels Midland remains on track to start commercial supply in the coming weeks and expects to develop food contact-suitable grades this year. Telles, the joint-venture company, produces the Mirel brand of biodegradable plastic polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA).

For the record, the downturn that slammed the plastics industry starting in about mid-2008 and proceeding through mid-2009 was the first period since 1950 when the plastics industry saw a dramatic drop in consumption of resin globally. Until then, average annual demand growth had been 9%/year, according to figures presented yesterday by officials working for PlasticsEurope, the trade group representing Europe's plastics suppliers.

Research on electro-activated polymers that began at Stanford University, and was further developed at a company called Artificial Muscle Inc., has now been acquired by Bayer MaterialScience. The acquisition of the company, its patents, and its patent applications is the latest purchase by the massive plastics and chemicals supplier to focus on plastic film's surface haptics and appearance.

Leading companies from the resin supply, moldmaking, and injection molding machinery industries have joined forces in a technical cooperation to help promote and support polycarbonate automotive glazing in Japan. Bayer MaterialScience brings its Makrolon-brand polycarbonate (PC) to the project, with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries supplying its injection molding machinery expertise, and Kyowa Industrial its moldmaking prowess.

Polymer costs are up, but monomer costs have risen higher. That was the perspective on the polyolefin market given by LyondellBasell in a March 5 teleconference detailing the company's January performance. Jim Gallogly, LyondellBasell CEO, and Kent Potter, the company's CFO, laid out the financial performance for the firm in the first month of the new year, for the first time utilizing new business units.

Houston—The same longevity that makes plastics desirous as a material draws the ire of environmentalists who decry the burgeoning amounts of the synthetic materials piling up in landfills. At the recent Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) International Polyolefins Conference in Houston, TX (Feb.

Houston—BPA has become the acronym of concern among consumers and regulators, but one company is pressing for greater awareness of another, EA, or estrogenic activity. BPA, short for Bisphenol A, is a chemical building block of the widely used engineering plastic polycarbonate (PC). PC has largely been pushed out of food-contact markets over concerns that the BPA within the material mimics the hormone estrogen, with deleterious impacts, particularly for younger populations.

Painting of plastics, or any material, can be a very costly process, with the costs even higher if environmental responsibility is on the agenda. But Alliance Surface Finishing thinks its powder-coating process could be a game changer in the way all plastics are painted. "This will change the way the world paints," predicts Robert Langlois, CEO and president of the company.

Houston—Every other OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development) country besides the U.S. imposes fees that brand owners must pay to dispose of their products' packaging. That fact alone would suggest that America's approach to end-of-life packaging scenarios is untenable, and change does indeed seem inevitable, driven in part by what Victor Bell describes as a "perfect storm." Speaking at the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) International Polyolefins Conference (Feb.