The Ellen MacArthur Foundation announced the winners of its $1 million Circular Materials Challenge at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The winners will join a 12-month accelerator programme working with experts to make their innovations marketable at scale. Among the winners are a number of innovative biopolymers and applications for bioplastics, including EUBP [...]
Companies in the food sector are increasingly looking for alternatives to conventional plastic packaging to reduce their CO2 footprint and are switching to packaging solutions made from renewable raw materials. A team at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands is studying the perceptions of bio-based packaging among consumers and aims to give manufacturers [...]
Non-biodegradable cotton buds prohibited in Italy from 2019: Italy will be the first country to ban non-biodegradable plastic cotton buds as of 2019. The Italian parliament adopted a proposal on 19 December 2017 to only allow the production and sale of cotton buds that are biodegradable and compostable according to the European standard EN [...]
But European Commission misses chance to fully embrace circular benefits of bio-based plastics and biodegradable plastics Berlin, 17 January 2018 – The European Strategy for Plastics, published on Tuesday by the European Commission, sets clear goals to curb plastic waste, increase resource efficiency, and to create value and job growth in Europe, but falls [...]
Mazda teams with Mitsubishi Chemical to develop bio-based engineering plastic grade: Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. and Mazda have jointly developed a new grade of Durabio, a bio-derived polycarbonate engineering plastic suitable for molding large cosmetic automotive parts. Durabio is based partially on isosorbide, which in turn is derived from sorbitol, a widely available natural feedstock. [...]
The new German packaging law (Verpackungsgesetz, effective from January 2019, we reported earlier this year) includes provisions under which the participation fees for packaging shall be adapted in order to incentivise the use of recycled and renewable materials. The consequential increase in bio-based plastic packaging and the expected rise of new types of materials [...]
With growing market volumes of innovative bio-based and biodegradable plastics such as PLA (polylactic acid), the recycling of these materials is becoming a more viable option. We therefore spoke to Steve Dejonghe from Looplife Polymers Site, a recycler in Belgium that already successfully recycles PLA for a number of industrial projects, about the recyclability [...]
Sugarcane © Wikimedia Commons Braskem, the Americas’ leading producer of thermoplastic resins, and Danish-based Haldor Topsoe, a world leader in catalysts and surface science, have signed a technological cooperation agreement to develop a pioneering route to produce monoethylene glycol (MEG) from sugar. The companies invest in the construction of a demonstration plant [...]
Perstorp launches world’s first portfolio of renewable polyols: In response to the fast-growing global need for more sustainable coatings, resins and synthetic lubricants, Perstorp has developed a portfolio of renewable alternatives to the essential polyols Pentaerythritol (Penta), Trimethylolpropane (TMP), and Neopentyl glycol (Neo). Two new polyols – Evyron and Neeture - complete the company’s [...]
Every year, the European Bioplastics Conference features a well-rounded conference programme attracting senior executives from across the bioplastics value chain, policy bodies, NGOs, and brand owners. We are happy to announce the final speaker line-up of this year’s conference, taking place on 28-29 November 2017 in Berlin, Germany. François de Bie, Chairman of [...]