Industry News 


 Editor’s Note


Depending on where you are in the world, recent weather may have thrown an added spanner in the works. Much of Britain was blasted by Storm Darcy, causing widespread disruption, due to ice and heavy snow. However, that pales in comparison to the winter storms sweeping across America, wreaking havoc for those struggling with sub-zero temperatures, power outages and food shortages. Extreme weather is yet more proof that our climate is changing, and events like this will become far more frequent if we don’t take the action needed now. Some naysayers don’t attribute meteorological phenomena to global warming but they need to realise that climate change is causing a complex shift in our weather patterns, rising seas, an increase in average temperature, plus changes in wildlife and habitats – and all because we continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere. Since coming into this industry, I have seen a huge push from manufacturers and suppliers to, not only produce more sustainable products, but to also operate their businesses in a more environmentally-friendly way. That means the majority of you reading this don’t need me to spell it out. As well as great new initiatives from Mondi, Avery Dennison, Arjowiggins, CEFLEX, and Epson this month, I am also heartened to learn about collaborative efforts from Tetra Pak and Konica Minolta, who are working closely with customers and other firms to tackle sustainability challenges. Keep up the good work! Collaboration is definitely key for change.


Fiona Garcia Editor fgarcia@datateam.co.uk


CEFLEX shows new market potential for recyclates from flexible packaging








Milliken joins GO!PHA to drive use of bio-based, biodegradable PHA polymers in single-use packaging


A new Quality Recycling Process (QRP) for flexible packaging, from CEFLEX and its stakeholders, shows high value applications for recycled polymers from a mechanical recycling process is viable.


CEFLEX says the breakthrough process has been developed in the consortium’s Sustainable End Markets workstream. “We have reached a milestone through the power of value chain collaboration and expertise in waste management of flexible packaging,” said workstream lead, Dana Mosora. “Our trials have shown good yields and delivered recyclate quality suitable to replace virgin polymer grades in a number of demanding film and flexible packaging applications.”


The CEFLEX stakeholder team set out to deliver commercial quantities of Polyethylene (PE) and Polypropylene (PP) film quality recyclates for a range of non-food flexible packaging markets not currently open to household collected post-consumer flexible recyclates.


With this milestone reached, the CEFLEX workstream is planning industrial trials to underpin the business case for investment in infrastructure which can leverage the QRP into a mainstream solution.


convertermag.com


Milliken & Company’s Chemical Division has joined the Global Organisation for PHA (GO!PHA) to help address the technical and market development challenges related to polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) biodegradable biopolymers. Milliken will bring to GO!PHA its expertise in polymer chemistry to help improve the processing, performance, aesthetics and other important attributes of PHA. The goal is to expand the application


range of this family of materials into more packaging applications. GO!PHA is a coalition of industry and academic stakeholders dedicated to advancing the development, commercialisation and adoption of PHA polymers through advocacy and knowledge sharing. Milliken will collaborate with other GO!PHA members to prioritise technical issues and explore ways to solve them by adapting existing high-performance Milliken additives or developing new technologies.


“Milliken’s participation in GO!PHA supports our corporate sustainability goals by giving us a collaborative platform to tackle the challenges of ocean plastics and natural resource conservation,” said senior vice president, plastics additives, for Milliken’s Chemical Division, Allen Jacoby. “We look forward to working with other GO!PHA members on enhancements that can make PHA polymers more appealing to product designers, converters and consumers.”


February 2021 5


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44