Environment

Aquafil will open its first US carpet recycling facility in Phoenix, Arizona, offering a long-awaited solution to this persistent source of waste. Aquafil Carpet Recycling will recycle the PA 6 waste from carpets back into raw material, further enhancing its pioneering EcoNyl Regeneration System - one of the...

The RadiciGroup 2016 Sustainability Report has been officially released. The document reports on the objectives and goals achieved by the Group in the field of economic, environmental and social sustainability, sets new challenges for the organization and communicates its performance to all stakeholders in a transparent way...

What is the role of plastics in a circular economy? Why is innovation so important for the transition towards a resource efficient Europe? What is full life cycle thinking?

In 2016, a new law entered into force in France, prohibiting the sale and distribution of non-biodegradable-polyethylene-based disposable bags with thickness lower than 50 microns; consequently, a French converter based in the Rhône-Alpes region decided to invest in a new project which includes the purchase of a Bandera SmartFlex Bio line for...

On the occasion of the thirteenth edition of IdentiPlast - the PlasticsEurope’s international conference on the recycling and recovery of plastics - some 300 experts from European municipalities, local authorities, policy and decision makers, waste management organisations, NGOs, plastics value chain, academia and research institutes gathered in...

On February 1, 2017, 160 delegates from the entire PET value chain from Europe and beyond convened in Brussels for the annual Petcore Europe Conference 2017. Under the theme “PET 2020 - The future of the PET industry”, the complete industry - from PET resin producers, masterbatch producers, packaging designers and manufacturers...

The bio-butadiene (bio-BDE) technology developed by Versalis (Eni) in partnership with Genomatica has been named winner of the Environmental Achievement of the Year within the “Tire Technology International Awards for Excellence and Innovation”, the European independent award program for the tire industry...

On January 26, the European Commission released its long-awaited Roadmap on the Strategy for Plastics. The document, which forms part of the Circular Economy Package, outlines key issues posed by plastics along the entire value chain. It takes into account the material’s entire life-cycle and paves the way for an actual EU Strategy by the…

Over 92% of Italians go shopping at the supermarket with reusable plastic bags and 82% have a positive view of the law, which sanctioned the transition from the use of traditional plastic bags to biodegradable bags, which is considered a step forward for our country in environmental protection. There is similar approval of the initiative of…

As part of its Circular Economy Package, the European Commission has proposed challenging targets for the plastics industry. By 2025, 55% of plastic packaging waste must be prepared for re-use and recycling. The industry recognises that a business as usual approach will not meet this target. Fresh approaches and close collaboration across the…

At the exhibition SPS IPC Drives (November 22-24, 2016), in Nuremberg, Moog Industrial Group released a new family of fan-cooled brushless servo motors, further extending its broad selection of high performance motors. The design of fan-cooled brushless servo motors offers additional torque to accelerate and...

IdentiPlast - the international conference on collection, sorting and recycling of plastics - provides the world’s most comprehensive platform on the exchange of know-how between the plastics industry, regulators, academia and waste management practitioners from around the globe. The next edition’s conference will be held on...

The 22 November at the Research centre of the CNR in Pisa saw the conclusion of the project entitled “Leguval: Valorisation of legume co-products and by-products for package application and energy production from biomass”, as part of the seventh framework programme (FP7) supported by the European Commission. The project as well as involving the…

A new collaboration between the Corepla consortium and the Carpi consortium to facilitate the collection of plastic packaging waste from private commercial and industrial sites: this is the subject of an agreement between Corepla and the Carpi consortium for plastics recycling, whose aim is to implement, throughout Italy, the network of...

Italy is one of the top 5 EU countries when it comes to recycling. This result is the fruit of in-depth research undertaken in 2003 by Corepla (the Italian consortium for the collection and recycling of plastic packages) for investment in R&D, recycling-oriented production, and reuse of materials, and of a system that is increasingly efficient…

Borealis, a leading provider of innovative solutions in the fields of polyolefins, base chemicals and fertilizers, announces today that it has fully acquired the German plastics recyclers mtm plastics and mtm compact. Based in Niedergebra, Germany, mtm plastics is regarded as a technology leader in the recycling of mixed post-consumer plastic…

Materials manufacturer Covestro has once again received “Gold” certification from the international rating agency EcoVadis in recognition of its achievements in sustainability. In the recent survey, the company even improved its standing significantly and is now among the top two percent in the global ranking of 25,000 companies...

Petcore Europe - in collaboration with Procter & Gamble - brought together 100 participants from the PET industry, research facilities and the media for its first “Tracer Workshop” in Brussels. The event gave an overview on current active tracer projects and intended to stimulate a cross-industry discussion on how to harmonise the use of...

What do we know about marine litter? What policies are being implemented to prevent marine litter and create a circular economy? What is the role of the plastics industry in reducing marine litter? These and other equally challenging questions were on the agenda of PolyTalk 2016, a two day conference organised by PlasticsEurope in Brussels on...

The German plastics packaging association (Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen) recently participated in an extensive survey on the image of plastics in Germany which has revealed pleasing results for the material EPS airpop. The survey was carried out by RiQuesta target-group research...