bioplasticsMAGAZINE_0902

Event Review
photo courtesy
of Environmental
Division of SPE
GPEC Global Plastics
Environment Conference 2009
Under the headline ’Plastics: The Wonderful World of Sustainability and
Recyling’ about 300 delegates and speakers met from February 25 to 27 in
Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida, USA. The conference
was accompanied by a table top exhibition. One of three parallel sessions was
on Bio-based and Biodegradable Materials.
Among the most interesting presentations, which were attended by an
average of 70 to 90 delegates was Ross Young’s (Univenture) talk about the
Production of Algae primarily for bioplastics and fuel. Corey Linden (Battelle)
introduced methods to improve PLA performance for injection moulding. Todd
Rogers of Arkema spoke about a new type on transparent, (50%) biobased
polyamide, named Rilsan clear. Jim Lunt (Tianan Biologic) and Kristin Taylor
(Telles) presented their latest developments and application examples from
the field of the PHA’s.
The massively discussed presentation by Michael Stephen of Symphony about
– what Professor Greene (California State Univ. Chico) called oxo-fragmentable
plastics – was commented by Joe Greene: “Disney is an appropriate location
for such kind of presentations”. However, Mr. Stephens again was not able to
present any scientifically backed data to prove his claims.
During lunch on the first day, Eric Connell of Toyota shared with the delegates
his experience and thoughts about ‘Automotive Applications & Expectations of
Biobased Materials’. From the viewpoint of greenhouse gas reductions and
resource security, bioplastics are attractive as carbon neutral materials, but
Eric also pointed out the limitations that currently still exist for industrial
usage for automotive applications.
Dr. John Kristy, Professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville explained
in an elaborated plenary session on the second day his findings about CO 2
and global warming. However, his ‘all-clear’ statement ‘all carbon dioxide
emissions – if reduced or not - do not affect the climate’ was not exactly agreed
to by all of the delegates.
bioplastics MAGAZINE will cover some of the most interesting talks, as well as
some of the really good student posters in the coming issues.
Sustainability
in Packaging
Intertech-pira sponsored a
conference, accompanied by an
exhibition, on ‘Sustainability in
Packaging’ on 3-4 March also in
Orlando, Florida. An average of
about 30-40 from the total of 210
delegates came to the ‘bioplastics’
session to attend presentations from
industry experts. In his presentation
on ‘How plastics packaging meets
the sustainability challenge in
Europe’ Professor Kosior (Nextek)
for example addressed the question
of automatic sorting PLA from a
mixed PLA / PET waste stream.
Other presentations covered latest
develompents in PLA (Erwin Vink,
NatureWorks), PHA (Daniel Gilliland,
Telles), Starch based bioplastics
(Tom Black, Plantic and Daniel Tein,
PSM) and biobased (bio-ethanol)
Polyethylene (Jeff Wooster, Dow).
Leslie Harty, president of Maverick
Enterprises gave a controversially
discussed presentation that also
covered their products made from
PE and PET and additives that are
claimed to make these materials
biodegradable. Data that prove
the 100% biodegradation of these
materials according to standards
such as EN 13432 / ASTM D6400 or
EN 14855 / ASTM D5338 however,
could not be presented.
bioplastics MAGAZINE [02/09] Vol. 4