News 2011

Discarded plastic bottles have been filled up with sand and then stacked to form the walls of this now-popular house.

Organized by PlasticsEurope and the International plastics value chain, Identiplast 2011 was held at the Royal Tapestry Factory in Madrid on October 3 and 4.

Stand-alone smoke alarms do two things: they detect smoke, and alert the occupants to the danger of fire.

The Bank of Canada has unveiled its new polymer banknotes. By 2013, the new notes will replace the old paper dollars, starting with $100 and $50 notes, followed by $20, $10 and $5 bills.

A project by the Fraunhofer Institute will allow Germany to replace the now familiar wooden and concrete railway sleepers with new recycled plastic ones.

Is the EU on track to achieve its ambitious climate change targets? This question, often asked but hardly answered confidently, has been extensively covered in the European Parliament on July 12.

The new Monumenta* installation event at the Grand Palais in Paris caused quite a stir. And with good reason - the main space of this landmark exhibition hall hosts the hugely spectacular Leviathan by plastic artist Anish Kapoor**.

It is reported that the catastrophic fires which razed the State of Victoria, in Australia, over 14 days in 2009 (the 2009 Black Saturday Fires), destroyed 430,000 hectares of vegetation and led to the deaths of 173 people, also caused the release into the atmosphere of 8.5 million tonnes of CO2.

How can airplane passengers be better protected from attacks?

More than just a watch, Ice-Watch is a brilliant concept! Ice Watch was born in 2007, following a meeting between Jean-Pierre Lutgen, a Belgian and the Chinese Polly Yu and Christy Su.

The new President of PlasticsEurope

PlasticsEurope called for an effective ban on the landfilling of waste as the most effective means of improving resource efficiency in Europe...

Nike have just brought out a new golf ball, the 20XI and, as any informed Latin scholar will spot immediately, this is a mixture of Arabic and Roman numerals which means 2011!

In collaboration with Faurecia and Performance Materials Corporation (PMC), BASF has developed a car seat back based on new plastics technology.

The Euro 2012 championship is the biggest event in the football world after the World Cup. It is to be held in Poland and Ukraine between 08 June and 01 July 2012.

On 12 April 2011, the European PVC industry, released the final Progress Report on Vinyl 2010, the ten year voluntary commitment, launched in the year 2000, to enhance the sustainable production and use of PVC.

As a scientific method, Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a technique used to analyse the potential environmental impacts associated with a product, process or service.

A revolutionary invention? Whatever the case may be, it has just won a prize at the international competition, organised by the CTIA Wireless Show in Orlando, in the United States. The fruit of research by Wysips, a small French company created in 2009.

260,000 tonnes of PVC waste recycled in 2010 in Europe: this is what the European PVC industry has just announced in the final report of Vinyl 2010, its ten-year programme of voluntary commitment, launched in 2000, to promote sustainable development in the production and utilisation of PVC.

Perfectuile is an innovative tile manufactured from recycled HDPE and LDPE; the first plastic tile combining ecological performance with aesthetics, lightness and solidity; and heat and sound insulation.

47 plastics industry organisations from around the world sign up to a "Joint Declaration for Solutions on Marine Litter”

The Solar Impulse is an aeroplane flying around the world powered by solar energy to demonstrate the immense potential of renewable energy sources and clean technologies.

The now-famous diode, used in many screens, is one of the numerous applications connected to the development of conductive polymers.

On 17 February 2011, Jean-Pierre De Grève - PlasticsEurope- and Richard Thommeret -Solvay-, acted as FuturEnergia ambassadors on behalf of PlasticsEurope and European School net in a tone-setting event on energy efficiency that took place at the European School Brussels III.

The three day summit which invites members of the plastics value chain and other stakeholders...