NEWS
Exxon starts giant Texas cracker
ExxonMobil has started up its giant 1.5m tonnes/yr ethane cracker at Baytown in Texas in the US. The new cracker will
provide ethylene feed- stocks to the PE lines at the company’s Mont Belvieu site, which commenced operation late last year and have a combined capacity of 1.3m tonnes/yr. “Our new ethane cracker will help us meet the growing global demand for high performance plastic products that deliver key sustainability benefits such as lighter packaging weight, lower energy consumption and reduced emissions,” said John Verity, President of ExxonMobil Chemical. �
www.exxonmobil.com
Proposed EU decaBDE limits raise concerns
EuRIC, the umbrella organi- sation of the European recycling industry, has raised concerns over a key aspect of the European Commis- sion’s recast of its Regulation EC/850/2004 covering persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and its potential impact on WEEE recycling. The organisation said that
most of the updates to the Regulation will provide better clarity and legal certainty. However, it said the European Parliament’s proposal to set an “uninten- tional trace contaminant” level at concentrations of 10 mg/kg (0.001 wt%) for the flame retardant decaBDE in substances, mixtures, articles or as constituents of the flame-retarded parts of
European recyclers are concerned over European Parliament’s proposed decaBDE trace limit
articles, gives rise for concern. This limit already applies to other polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants listed in the Regulation, but with a derogation for “the produc-
tion, placing on the market and use of … articles and mixtures containing below 0.1% of [PBDE] by weight when produced partially or fully from recycled materials”. The derogation – 100 times higher than that proposed for decaBDE – is vital for the recycling industry, EuRIC said, because “it is simply not possible to guarantee a level of 10 ppm in recycled plastics from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and end-of-life vehicles (ELVs).”. If the proposed new limit
is enforced, recycling plastics from WEEE or ELVs in Europe will end, the association warned. �
www.euric-aisbl.eu/
Project aims to define ‘recyclable’
Plastics Recycling Europe (PRE) and the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) in the US have teamed up to develop a global definition governing the use of the term ‘recyclable’ in the context of plastic packaging and products. The associations lay out four conditions that should be met for a product to be considered recyclable: It must be made with a plastic that is collected for recycling and has market value and/or is supported by a legislatively mandated programme; It must be sorted and aggregated into defined streams for recycling process- es; It can be processed and reclaimed or recycled with commercial recycling processes; The recycled plastic becomes a raw material that is used in the production of new products.
14 COMPOUNDING WORLD | August 2018
technically recyclable.” Ton Emans, PRE President, added
We have the logo; now the goal is to define “recyclable”
“The use of the term ‘recyclable’ is consistently used with packages and products without a defined reference point,” said APR President Steve Alexander. “At the end of the day, recyclability goes beyond just being
that there have been many recent announcements about legislative measures on plastics products and pledges by industry actors to make their products recyclable. “We welcome these commitments and encourage others to follow. Nevertheless, clear and universally endorsed definitions and objectives are needed,” he said. The stated aim in doing this was to
“provide a consistent metric to guide the efforts of sustainability for plastics in the circular economy”. It is also seen as a step to harmonise the worldwide plastics recycling industry. Comments from industry and other stakeholders are invited. �
https://plastics-recyclers-europe.prezly.com
www.compoundingworld.com
PHOTO: PLASTIC RECYCLERS EUROPE
PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK
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