PVC reclaim plant goes commercial

February 27, 2002 - The first batches of recycled PVC have come from the Vinyloop Ferrara plant in Italy. The plant uses a solvent process to separate PVC from other waste products such as rubber and polyethylene, primarily from the insulation of electric cables, and is expected to handle around 10,000 tonnes of scrap each year.
     The plant is at Solvay's Ferrara site, and uses a process developed and patented by Solvay. Vinyloop Ferrara is a consortium of four companies: PVC producer Solvin Italia, part of Solvin, the 75 per cent Solvay/25 per cent BASF European PVC major; Adriaplast, an industrial sheet/food packaging/credit card producer in the Solvay group; Technometal, an electricity and telephone cable producer; and Vulcaflex, which coats and calenders PVC. The original consortium also included Fitt, a mainly Italian producer of flexible and rigid PVC pipes.
     Further development of the plant is planned for April this year when a pre-treatment stage will be added, using Solvay's Tricare process which should enable a PVC content level of 85 per cent to be recovered from the scrap.
     A second Vinyloop unit is scheduled for 2004 to reprocess PVC-coated tarpaulins and fabrics produced by Ferrari Textiles of France, and there are half a dozen other projects being studied in Europe, Canada and Japan - where Kobe Steel is working on potential applications.
     Vinyloop

Funding competition to increase kerbside bottle collection

February 27, 2002 - WRAP - the Waste and Resources Action Programme - is offering to fund half the investment in new facilities to recover plastics bottles from consumer waste. It has announced a grant competition to companies able to develop a processing infrastructure to recover 20,000 tonnes of additional bottle scrap - which would more than double the existing 15,000 tonnes or 3 per cent of Britain's annual 500,000 tonnes of scrap bottles. The reason such a small percentage of bottle scrap is recovered is, believes WRAP, because of the costs of collecting and sorting bottles from the municipal waste stream.
     A new study, Opportunities for Bottle Recycling, estimates that plastic bottle recycling should have an overall cost of no more than £100/tonne, whereas at present it is around £170/tonne. WRAP's plastics materials sector manager Paul Davidson said: 'Improving the economics will make plastic bottle collection more attractive to local authorities, and this can be achieved by creating regional automatic sorting facilities which offer economies of scale and avoid the high costs associated with manual sorting. Once local authorities can justify the inclusion of plastic bottle collections in their waste management contracts, and the collection and sorting infrastructure is in place, UK reprocessing capacity will then grow to accommodate the increased volume.'
     Any projects funded under this competition will have to come on stream in 2003 with specified intermediate tonnages, and reach full capacity by 2005. Applications close on March 22.
     WRAP

Rapid prototyping investment

February 27, 2002 - Rapid prototyping and tooling specialist Arrk has expanded its facilities by buying a new Krauss-Maffei injection moulding machine and two Brown & Sharpe co-ordinate measuring machines.
     The KM250 (250 tonnes lock, 620 g shot) injection moulder has been installed at Thornaby on Teesside, where a smaller KM80 was added earlier this year.
     The two CMMs have gone into Arrk's sites in Gloucester, and in Barcelona, Spain.
     Arrk

BASF ups EPS price

February 27, 2002 - BASF is increasing the price of its Styropor expandable polystyrene on March 1 by Eur 150/tonne.
     BASF

Rotaform goes as Low & Bonar cools its plastics ambitions

February 27, 2002 - Rotational moulder Bonar Rotaform of Sheffield has been closed down, and its parent company, Low & Bonar, is looking carefully at the future of its plastics processing business. Bonar Rotaform was part of Bonar Plastics Europe, probably the largest roto moulding group in Europe with 10 plants in seven countries. The company also has four plants in North America.
     The decision to close the Sheffield factory was taken towards the end of last year when a fall-off in business from, primarily, the off-road vehicle, agriculture and construction sectors contributed to a fall in profits for the plastics division from £3·8 million to £1·5 million on sales of £71 million. Some 110 jobs have been lost at Sheffield, and the work from the factory has been distributed among other European plants, including the new factory opened last year in Poland.
     The plastics business as a whole is 'under review', although the company has emphasised that it is not up for sale. Low & Bonar has around £100 million available to invest, but little of this is likely to go into plastics. Instead the company is refocusing on specialist materials, one of the areas (the other being plastics) that it sold its packaging business to concentrate on two years ago. At the same time it sold its Bonar Polymers acrylics operation to Ineos.
     Low & Bonar
     Bonar Plastics

Investment in cleaner latex production

February 27, 2002 - West Midlands latex manufacturer PolymerLatex of Bromsgrove has invested £2·1 m in a steam production plant intended to reduce emissions and odours. The 4·4 m × 6·1 m boiler was designed in Germany, and partly manufactured by another West Midlands firm, Wellman Robey of Oldbury. PolymerLatex is jointly owned by Degussa-Hüls and Bayer, and is currently for sale.

Polyols plant now under construction

February 27, 2002 - Work has started on the polymer polyols plant being built at Pernis in the Netherlands by Shell Nederland Chemie. The 50,000 tonnes plant, together with another being built in Singapore, will bring Shell's capacity for flexible polyols to more than 400,000 tonnes.

Nextrom slims down to concentrate on fibre optics

February 25, 2002 - Nextrom is shutting its Italian film machinery business and cutting back on the development of its Conex screwless extruder. This is in line with its declared intention of quitting all activities except fibre optics by this coming summer, following the appointment of Jouni Heinonen as chief executive in 1999. The first major divestment was last summer when Nextrom sold its metallic cable and pipe operations to a management buy-out.
     The decision to put its Milanese subsidiary into liquidation was triggered by poor trading, which Nextrom said would not enable the company to make a profit in the next two years. The cut back in the development of Conex is 'as a consequence of continuous delay encountered in the development and commercialisation of this product'.
     Nextrom

Stay of execution for photopolymer agency split

February 25, 2002 - Vantico's attempt to end 3D Systems' exclusive distribution of Cibatool SL photopolymers for stereolithography and to sell them itself directly to customers has met a slight set back. Vantico had tried to end the distribution agreement on February 18. 3D wanted it to continue until February 2005. Now the two companies have extended the agreement until May 1.
     Vantico

UHMWPE price increase

February 25, 2002 - Ticona is increasing the price of its GUR and GHR ultra high molecular weight polyethylenes in the Americas by 12·5 per cent, starting on March 18.
     Ticona

Shell plans world-scale Corterra plant

February 24, 2002 - Shell is to build a 95,000 tonnes polytrimethylene terephthalate (PTT) plant in Canada. PTT - Shell's trade name is Corterra - is a thermoplastic polyester with potential as a fibre and as an engineering thermoplastic, although the emphasis to date has been on the fibres market, particularly in carpets.
     The plant will be built and operated in a 50/50 partnership by Shell Chemicals Canada and SGF Chimie and will be called PTT Poly Canada. SGF will supply purefied terephthalic acid from an SGF/Interquisa plant currently under construction at an adjacent site near Montreal, and the other major feedstock PDO will come from Shell's Geismar, Louisiana, USA plant. Operations should begin in the fourth quarter of 2003.
     Shell Chemicals

Etex sells off VIP-Heinke

February 24, 2002 - One of the Glynwed Pipe Systems businesses bought by Etex last year has been sold on. Plastics and rubber seal maker VIP-Heinke has been bought by a consortium including Close Brothers Private Equity and Grove Industries, which owns United Polymers Group.
     Non-executive chairman of Grove Industries David Grove has taken on a similar role at VIP-Heinke, while chief executive of United Polymers, Rod Lister, becomes a director at VIP-Heinke.
     No price has been put on the company, but VIP-Heinke's turnover last year was around £12 million.

Management changes at PMB

February 24, 2002 - One of the original founders of Performance Masterbatches, Peter Taylor, has moved upstairs to chairman. David Thomas, sales and marketing director, replaces him as managing director. Danny Evans joined the company in January as sales director, from Impact Colours where he was business manager. Steve Bailey, with PMB since 1996, has been promoted to development manager.

US polyurethanes price increase

February 24, 2002 - Dow Polyurethanes is increasing the US price of its Voranate TDI and Voranol, Voralux and Specflex polyols and copolymers. The increase takes effect on March 1 and is $0·15/lb for Voranate and $0·15/lb for the other materials.

Eastman's amoeba becomes Siamese twins

February 13, 2002 - The delay in splitting Eastman into two companies forced in November because of the downturn in world financial markets has been made permanent. However, the division of the business into a plastics company and a speciality chemicals company, including the setting up of Voridian as primarily a PET supplier, remains in place.
     The original intention was to divide the company into two independent units and split their ownership among existing shareholders. Now the company is to do virtually that in a divisional structure, but staying together as a single entity.
     Eastman

DuPont restructures and plans to sell fibres interest

February 13, 2002 - DuPont is planning to dispose of some of its fibres businesses in a realignment into five groups. It is setting up a wholly-owned subsidiary called DuPont Textiles & Interiors which it aims to hive off by the end of next year. This new business will include the nylon, polyester and Lycra fibres businesses. The company's other fibre operations are incorporated in the appropriate sectors of Electronic & Communication Technologies; Performance Materials; Coatings & Color Technologies; Safety & Protection and Agriculture & Nutrition.
     The existing Engineering Polymers, Packaging & Industrial Polymers; and interests in DuPont Dow Elastomers and DuPont Teijin Films will be grouped in DuPont Performance Materials. The Fluoroproducts business will become part of Electronics & Communication Technologies.
     DuPont

Who's going up, down or out in plastics distribution

February 13, 2002 - Plastics distributors come under the spotlight in a new analysis by Plimsoll Publishing which, among other things, names companies in the analysis which other companies in the analysis could realistically purchase.
     Plimsoll publishes regular reports on market sectors in which it makes some forthright assessments of companies' worth and potential. In its distributors analysis it assesses the strengths and weaknesses of 100 companies and names 12 companies which it says are losing pace - of which three have sales over £158 million - and 16 which its says need a period of great change in order to compete.
     As part of its analysis Plimsoll has calculated the current and future worth of each company, and predicts the likely strategy each is to take over the next 12 months.
     Plimsoll Publishing

Hand-operated moulding machine wanted

February 13, 2002 - Does anyone have have a redundant hand-operated injection moulding machine? Hewett High School in Norwich is looking for one as a teaching aid. CDT technician Richard Davies (formerly of UCP/Zeller and Merit Plastics) is contemplating building one - something like a plunger machine about the size of a drill press - if he can find the right construction details. Better would be if anyone had a small working machine they could donate.
     Richard Davies e-mail
     The school is on 01603 628181.

Aldridge adds another Sandretto moulding cell

February 13, 2002 - Aldridge Plastics has just bought its eighth machine/robot cell from Sandretto in 12 months. The latest in its continuing programme of moulding automation is a Nova T 500 tonne machine equipped with a Dal Maschio Nepal servo-drive robot, material drier and insulated hopper.

New APME communications director

February 13, 2002 - The Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe has appointed a new communications director to replace Nelo Emerencia who returns to ExxonMobil as head of issues management in the Netherlands. His successor is also from ExxonMobil, Yvonne Barcelona who has been with ExxonMobil for 15 years, most recently as Polyolefins Europe planning manager.
     APME

Perlos moves from mobiles to medical

February 9, 2002 - The UK arm of Finnish moulder Perlos is switching its emphasis from the dwindling mobile phone business with which it has been strongly associated in the past to pharmaceutical moulding. Its parent company has operated in the high specification pharmaceutical market since the early '80s, selling its products worldwide, but mainly in the USA. Now the UK company in Sunderland is opening the group's first pharmaceutical clean room outside Finland. The new facility is part of a strategic decision within Perlos to further enlarge its pharmaceutical business.
     The 800 sq m facility at Rainton Bridge, Houghton-le-Spring, is located in the firm's moulding division, taking up a third of the factory. It is currently undergoing the final validation stages and production will begin in March. The cleanroom has been built to class 100,000 standard, and can be upgraded to a class 10,000 cleanroom in the future.
     The first product to go into production will be the Dosett dispenser, a weekly organiser of vitamin supplements and prescribed tablets from Swedish company Item Development, for which Perlos won the contract last June.

New finance director for British Vita

February 9, 2002 - Jeremy (Jez) Maiden is joining British Vita as group finance director on April 2. He is currently director of finance at the Britannia Building Society.

High growth in Central European polymer processing

February 9, 2002 - Consumption of thermoplastic materials in Central Europe has been growing strongly, with the 2000 consumption of 2·7 tonnes representing an annual growth of 11 per cent according to a new report from Applied Market Information. And while growth is slowing slightly, the research company expects the 2001 figure to be nearly 3 million tonnes, equivalent to an 8 per cent increase.
     Market growth has been driven by improving domestic demand, especially in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, combined with exports to a buoyant European economy. This has been fuelled by high levels of foreign investment in the automotive, telectronics, construction, packaging and domestic appliance sectors. The market has been weaker in the Slovakian Republic where the economy is still recovering from recession. Romania has shown strong growth but remains underdeveloped compared to the other countries covered in the survey.
     Over the past decade the region has attracted investment from many of the leading plastics processing companies in the West, either in existing plants or by creating new operations. Many of Europe's leading plastics processors are now operating in the region attracted by the lower wage costs of a well-educated and skilled workforce and the growth opportunities in the region and the markets to the east, says AMI. Hungary and Poland in particular have been very successful in attracting high levels of investment.
     Even so, Central European countries are not immune to the global pressures to find ever cheaper manufacturing locations and as wages rise and skill shortages emerge, AMI suggests that these countries may become victims of their own success and lose out on future investments. Hungary in particular has seen a number of recent announcements concerning the loss of moulding capacity to China or Eastern Europe.
     Despite the high level of investment in plastics processing by Western companies in the region, AMI says that Western companies have been slower to invest in polymer manufacture. Dunastyr in Hungary is the only commodity resin producer which has been successful in attracting investment from a major Western polymer producer - it is now 100 per cent owned by Enichem - and in engineering resins, Stilon in Poland is owned by Rhône-Poulenc.
     Most of the others remain in full or partial state ownership, although AMI says there is likely to be a significant restructuring and changes in ownership over the next five years driven by the need to ensure competitiveness as these countries move towards EU membership. Other factors such as back integration into feedstock supply will also be a consideration, as will be the increasing desire of oil companies in the region to expand their petrochemical operations.
     AMI's 2001 Central European Plastics Industry Report costs Eur 395 (£245).
     AMI

Static PVC market has undertones of change

February 8, 2002 - While the overall PVC compound market in Western Europe has remained fairly static over the past decade, there have been substantial underlying changes, according to a new report from Applied Market Information. Production was around 1·5 million tonnes and consumption between 1·2 and 1·3 million tonnes in 1990 and 2000, but where the compound went has changed substantially.
     Over the decade free compound (that not compounded in-house) increased in volume by an annual 5 per cent (although relative to total compounds consumption it fell from 17 to 15 per cent over the period). This followed the growth of building industry profiles and in 2000 building related applications took 22 per cent of the merchant PVC compound market, nearly double its market share 10 years prior. Countering the growth of building profile demand was the consumption of rigid bottle compound, which fell from 280,000 tonnes of 'free' compound in 1990 to less than 40,000 tonnes in 2000 as PVC was replaced by PET for mineral water and soft drinks packaging.
     This switch in demand also influenced national consumption levels in some countries where there was a healthy market for, particularly, mineral water bottles. In 1990 French demand for PVC compounds was 300,000 tonnes, representing 23 per cent of the West European market. By 2000 this had fallen to 190,000 tonnes, 15 per cent. Italy had a similar, but less dramatic, experience - although it also suffered from falling demand for shoe and cable compounds. By contrast, growth in demand for building profiles increased PVC consumption by around 2 per cent a year in the UK, Germany and Scandinavia.
     In the futre AMI expects demand to remain at around 1·2 - 1·3 million tonnes a year with growth in compounds for foam core and general building profiles balanced by reducing demand for window profiles as the market becomes more mature.
     AMI

COMMENT

Dyson demonstrates while Whitehall waffles

The widely publicised decision by inventor and entrepreneur James Dyson to move production of his vacuum cleaners from Britain to the Far East followed close on another contact between the heads of nine polymer-related industry organisations and the government.
     Nine trade associations (The Scottish Plastics & Rubber Federation and British Coatings Federation have joined the original seven) are acting together to persuade the government that some of its policies are crippling the British plastics and rubber processing industries, and thereby the country's wider industrial base. In response to an inquiry started by the House of Commons Trade and Industry Committee into manufacturing productivity and the performance gap between British companies and their European and American counterparts, the consortium has once again made the points it raised in a meeting last year with Lord Sainsbury, minister for Science and Innovation at the Department of Trade and Industry.
     But while the bureaucrats fiddle, it seems that James Dyson single handedly has done more to show the British public that the country's industrial base is in flames. The high profile of his innovative vacuum cleaners, and his own personal publicity, pushed his decision to cut jobs and production at his Malmesbury plant off the business pages and into the news pages, and on to prime time television news. In fact, the scale of Mr Dyson's action is modest in comparison with some of the company failures of the past couple of years, and the 800 or so job losses which will result are but a small part of those lost in British manufacturing - as Malmesbury is now building the Contrarotator washing machine and remains the centre of Dyson's R & D, after the cuts it will still be employing twice as many as it did four years ago.
     It is only to be hoped that any increase in public awareness of manufacturing industry's problems generated by the Dyson publicity puts pressure on Whitehall to elevate the urgency with which these problems must be addressed. We hear increasingly how the future lies in the service sector (from government ministers who, let's face it, are working in a service industry), but it is manufacturing which truly generates wealth. Banking, insurance, leisure and the rest rely on that wealth existing for their own existence. And as an example of the health of the service sector, one can only look at the continuing malaise and job cuts at British Airways...

UK agency for Austrian profile handling equipment

February 8, 2002 - The Austrian KUAG range of profile handling equipment is now available in the UK from White Extrusion Machinery.
     The company's latest stacking equipment incorporates profile monitoring of critical dimensions, triggering rejection of out-of-spec lengths which can be diverted for operator inspection. This has led to the development of off-line stacking, handling, packaging and order collating systems for profile warehouses consisting of order picking from stillages; collating, bag sleeving and sealing; labelling and/or bar coding; and placement in delivery stillages.
     Also in the range is equipment for automatic loading and unloading of profile lamination machines.
     White Extrusion Machinery e-mail

Edlon gets Bieffebi agency

February 8, 2002 - Italian manufacturer of flexographic print plate mounting and proofing presses Bieffebi has appointed Edlon Machinery as UK and Irish agent.
     A patented feature of the Bieffebi system is the ability to mount plates to register by taking reference from a printed proof as well as a dot or register marks. This enables a printer to mount a plate that has, say, lost its registration marks or dots, or to position a small plate within a large print area where only the print itself can be used for a reference, such as a bar code, promotional flash or spot colour.
     Edlon Machinery e-mail

Chinese rubber materials handling contract for BMH Chronos Richardson

February 8, 2002 - BMH Chronos Richardson has won a further contract from Cheng Shin - Toyo Tire and Rubber (China) Co for the Kunshan City tyre plant in Jiangsu Province in China. The £800,000 contract covers four project phases: weighing feeding carbon black and white fillers, polymers and oils for a masterbatch compounding line; polymers weighing and small chemical check weighing on a final mix compounding line; fully automatic small chemical batch weighing and automatic bag placing; and a CR3000 control system to control and monitor the plant.
     Installation starts in late spring.
     BMH Chronos Richardson

New name for conveyor company

February 8, 2002 - Aero mechanical conveyor specialist Floveyor International has changed its name to Aeromaster International. The company's conveyors work by pulling a wire rope carrying equally spaced discs at speed through a tube. This creates a low pressure area behind each disc, which carries the product being conveyed. This is said to enable conveying of materials with poor flow characteristics, such as carbon black and titanium dioxide.
     There has been no structural change in the company; the name has been changed to give it 'a fresh new look'.
     Aeromaster

Recoup advises better use of government recycling money

February 8, 2002 - Plastics recycling organisation Recoup has called on the government to increase landfill tax and extend funding for recycling.
     In its response to the government's recent consultation on how best to spend its £140 million Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund, Recoup commented that the current structure of the fund gave insufficient time for its most effective use. 'The fund application process must allow councils and contractors to develop and agree effective large-scale projects. The proposed timescale - only a few weeks - undermines the value of this fund.'
     Chief executive Andrew Simmons said: 'The fund must enable local government to commit finance over more than a single year to worthwhile projects. We urge the Treasury to incentivise UK recycling by extending the fund for a further three years, while continuing to increase landfill tax.
     'Our experience is that councils will not introduce or extend a recycling scheme on the basis of a single year of windfall funding. Let's extend the fund and remove this obvious barrier to real progress.'
     Recoup

Sheet production realignment

February 8, 2002 - Makroform, the PC and PET sheet joint venture between Bayer and Röhm, is realigning production at its three sites in Germany, Italy and Belgium to make best use of new investment.
     Solid sheet production is to be consolidated at the Tielt, Belgium plant, while multi-wall sheet will be made at Nera Montoro in Italy and Weiterstadt in Germany. An investment programme is to be started at Tielt and Weiterstadt to increase efficiency and reduce costs.

New testing machine agency

February 8, 2002 - Denison Mayes Group has been appointed exclusive UK distributor for German-built TesT torsion and tensile/compression testing machines.
     This follows the company's appointment last year as exclusive service and calibration provider for the Mitutoyo range of hardness testing machines.
     Denison Mayes Group

Exxon to buy the balance of AES

February 3, 2002 - ExxonMobil Chemical is planning to buy out its partner in Advanced Elastomer Systems, Solutia. Both companies hold 50 per cent of AES, which is best known for its Santoprene thermoplastic elastomer. ExxonMobil says its bid 'demonstrates ExxonMobil Chemical's commitment to having the broadest portfolio of polymers based on ethylene and propylene'. Terms and timing of the sale are not being revealed.

Foam companies merge

February 3, 2002 - Two cellular polymer processing companies in the Evans and Reid Investment Co group have been merged. Volcrepe and St Albans Rubber become E & R Polymers, operating from sites at Glossop in Derbyshire and Stanley in Co Durham. Managing director is Simon Mulhall, previously director and general manager of St Albans Rubber.

Polystyrene price increases, and a cut in capacity

February 3, 2002 - Nova Chemicals is increasing the European price of polystyrene and expanded polystyrene. Polystyrene went up around Eur 70/tonne on February 1, and EPS goes up around Eur 100/tonne on March 1. Similar price increases are being introduced in the USA.
     Last year Nova's styrenics business lost $181 million compared with a net income in 2000 of $42 million. Nova also lost money on its polyolefins business: in 2000 it made $258 million, while last year the business recorded a net loss of $2 million.
 Falling demand for styrene and styrenic polymers has led to the closure of the BASF styrene plant at Wesseling in Germany. The 30-year old plant had a capacity of 410,000 tonnes.

New look for Owens-Illinois

February 3, 2002 - Owens-Illinois has restructured its worldwide plastics operations, with name changes for some subsidiaries. It has set up two distinct plastics business units, Owens-Illinois Plastics Group, North America and Owens-Illinois Plastics Group, International.
     The International company will incorporate all the group's operations outside the USA. In Europe its four subsidiaries (PET Technologies in the UK and Holland, Continental PET Technologies Magyarorszag in Hungary and Ryttylan Muovi in Finland) are all renamed Owens-Illinois Plastics with incorporation in their respective countries.
     The change is intended to reflect the company's wider position in packaging supply: in Europe this emphasises that it is not just involved in PET packaging but also HDPE bottles and closures.
     Owens-Illinois

Multilayer film development investment

February 3, 2002 - DuPont has invested Eur 3 million in multilayer films research by installing a Windmöller & Hölscher five layer line, extensible to seven layers, at its European Technical Centre in Geneva.
     Among materials used in multilayer films made by DuPont are Surlyn ionomers, Nucrel acid copolymers, Elvax EVA copolymer, Bynel adhesive resins and Elvaloy AC ethylene-acrylate copolymers.
     DuPont

Dopag opens in Britain

February 3, 2002 - Swiss metering and mixing equipment manufacturer Dopag has opened a UK sales and distribution office in Worcester. For 20 years the company has distributed its products through Prodef Engineers. Former Prodef sales and marketing director Bob Jones is now marketing manager of Dopag (UK).
     Dopag (01299 250740)

Recycling top job

February 3, 2002 - Bernard Merkx, of Schoeller Wavin Systems Recycling in the Netherlands, has been elected president of EuPR for the second consecutive two-year term. EuPR is European Plastic Recyclers, the representative body for plastics recyclers and suppliers of plastics recyclates in Europe.