Plastics

| According to a report by the World Economic Forum, Ellen MacArthur Foundation and McKinsey, applying circular economy principles to global plastic packaging flows could transform the plastics economy and drastically reduce negative externalities such as leakage into oceans.

| Over the past 15 years, PVC has undergone a remarkable transformation from being a much-maligned plastic material to playing an important role in addressing climate change and establishing a circular economy.

| With the new sorting system BTB PET-Recycling wants to reduce the waste volume to be competitive.

| Recoup, the plastic packaging recycling body, is to join the expanding ownership of OPRL, which runs the increasingly popular packaging recycling label scheme. This latest development further extends ownership across bodies sharing OPRL’s mission to promote greater and more effective recycling of packaging materials. It aims to create a strong leadership position for industry on recycling issues.

| The Steinert Group’s new sorting machines Unisort Film and UNISORT BlackScan can detect Plastic films and black plastics with AOC and HSI technology.

| The European Council for Plasticisers and Intermediates – ECPI - is disappointed by the European Parliament’s plenary vote against the Commission proposal to authorise the recycling of soft PVC containing DEHP. The final decision will be taken by the European Commission which is not obligated to follow the European Parliament’s opinion.

| New data on plastics waste management shows an important growth in plastics waste collection.

| Although volumes, prices and confidence are all down, BIR Plastics Committee Chairman Surendra Patawari Borad of Belgium-based Gemini Corporation NV still spied “some silver linings in the grey clouds” for plastics recyclers.

| On 24 November 2015, the annual Petcore Europe Conference will take place in Brussels. The conference brings together more than 100 experts and leaders from the whole PET value chain in Europe and beyond as well as representatives from the European institutions. This year, the conference will focus on the four key aspects Sustainability, Circular Economy, Innovation and Globalisation.

| Within the Hiperdry project, a new prototype dryer for plastics pellets has been developed, combining microwave heating with superheated steam convective drying. An optimum antenna design will allow for gentle microwave application allows gentle microwave application to avoid overheating or damaging the polymer. The system is designed for time and energy efficient drying of conventional and bio-plastics.

| According to RECOUP, over 492,623 tonnes of plastics packaging was collected from UK households in 2014/15, an increase of around 30,000 tonnes or 6% on the previous year.

| APK has developed a technology capable of producing particularly high quality recycled regranulates from post-consumer film scrap originating from Germany's Dual System collection scheme (DSD). This scrap, known as fraction 310, consists of pieces of PE and PP film with a greater or lesser degree of contamination which is supplied to APK in bale form. The products leaving the elaborate cleaning, separation and recycling process are Mersalen LDPE Recompounds and also the particularly readily processable MDPE ReCompounds in pellet form.

| The Polymark Consortium has published its preliminary technical results outlining the successful development of food-contact approved chemical markers, a marking technique of the targeted packaging and a detection technology suitable for high speed sorting.

| According to Petcore, the equivalent of 66 billion 1.5L PET bottles were collected and recycled in 2014, representing 57% of bottles and containers placed in the market.