Canada declares BPA toxic, plans to draft regulations

Canada’s federal government has decided that bisphenol A is a toxic substance and is drafting regulations to manage the chemical. It is the first country to take such an extreme view of the byproduct of certain plastics production.

“Our science indicated that Bisphenol A may be harmful to both human health and the environment and we were the first country to take bold action in the interest of Canadians,” stated Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq in an Oct. 13 announcement.

The verdict of toxicity was echoed by Minister of the Environment Jim Prentice.

“We are continuing our leadership on this issue and Canadians can rest assured that we are working hard to monitor and manage bisphenol A,” Prentice noted in the announcement.

Bisphenol A has been added to Schedule 1 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which enables development of regulatory risk management measures.

The recent pronouncement strengthens Canada’s approach to bisphenol A. Nearly two years ago it banned polycarbonate baby bottles because they might contain BPA but it allowed 18.9-liter water bottles. In July 2009 it said BPA did not pose a health risk in bottled water, powdered infant formula and baby foods in glass jars with metal lids. This past summer the federal government announced BPA is present in the urine of most Canadians.

Source: plasticsnews.com

Which Plastics to Use and Avoid

Plastics are very important in day-to-day lives due to the numerous applications associated with them. Some of the common uses of plastics include packaging of items. Packaging industries must realize which plastics to use/avoid thus protecting the environment from harmful plastics. Generally, plastics are non-biodegradable hence they do not decay. For this reason, plastics fill the earth and cause water run off when they accumulate in soil. Because of this reason, packaging industries must use the appropriate plastic. The advantage of using plastic for packaging is because plastics offer a good barrier to many elements including oxygen and water.

Many governments, because of its pollution effects, ban thin plastic use. Thin polythene is not recycled after use; it thus ends up in the garbage heap thus polluting the environment. On the contrary, high-density plastics do not damage the environment due to recycling; this reduces pollution of the environment. Apart from conserving the environment, many employment opportunities crop up and sparing of raw materials thus boosting the economy. Another vital use plastic is in building and construction however, majority of construction work uses high-density plastic that is renewable. Polyvinyl chloride makes pipes as well as sliding sheets. Insulators, computer hardware as well as many handles are made of high-density plastics. These plastics never damage the environment because they are recycled. Apart from recycling, the plastics are multipurpose.

Industries use high-density plastics to manufacture of automobiles, trucks as well as airplanes seats and bumpers. Another use of plastics is in electric appliances and electric wire coatings. Due to inability of plastics to conduct heat or ectricity, they are widely used as insulators. Majority of these plastics are high-density plastics. Low-density plastics on the other hand lead to flooding. This is so because thin plastic fills the ground, thus no water percolation in the ground. Thin plastics harbor water that is breeding grounds for harmful insects like mosquitoes.

Thin plastics have some advantage because they are very cheap and they are produced fast. Plastics both high and low-density have general benefits to man and they include, flexbility. Tailoring plastics is easy thus attaining many different forms and shapes of products. Plastics have lightweight thus excellent for transporting purposes. This leads to reduced fuel consumption. When well kept, plastics are durable because they do not rust nor rust. Plastics are excellent building materials because they are resistant to water and chemical damage. Medical equipments and foodstuffs are packaged using plastics due to cleanliness of plastics. Plastics contain chemical compounds that are harmful to human body, thus, they are not ideal for food covering. An alternative plastic like bio-plastics solves this problem.

Scientists are researching on a new form of plastic called bio-plastic made from plant polymers. The advantage of this plastic is that microorganisms have the ability of degrading it. Bio-plastic are friendly to the environment thus it has no issues of filling the soil. Bio-plastics are also the ideal plastics because they have no harmful effects to the body due to chemicals present in the synthetic plastics. With these facts in place, an individual must decide which plastics to use/avoid depending on activity on hand.

http://www.articlesbase.com

Rehrig Pacific Company Adds New Line of Extruded Plastic Sheet Products

Rehrig Pacific Company, a leading manufacturer of reusable plastic pallets, crates and containers for the material handling and many food & beverage industries, is pleased to announce a new line of extruded plastic sheet products including slip sheets, divider sheets, tier sheets, and pallet pads.

Made from 100% recyclable materials, the Rehrig Slip Sheet is the key product in the group providing an alternative to other shipping platforms, such as wooden pallets and corrugated sheets, used in many industries including food, beverage, bagged goods and electronics. Slip sheets utilize a push/pull device that attaches to an existing forklift and function as the shipping platform typically for one-way shipments.

Since 1913, Rehrig Pacific has developed customized products and shipping solutions for many industries. “With years of design expertise and manufacturing experience, Rehrig decided to engineer an improved slip sheet which reduces tab failures and has a higher coefficient of friction (COF) than others,” said Nathan Franck, New Product Development Manager for Rehrig. “Our new state-of-the-art equipment and material blend combination allows us to manufacture a sheet that addresses these existing problems.”

Rehrig Slip Sheets weigh approximately 2 lbs and take up virtually no space in a trailer or container. A typical 40x48 wooden pallet weighs up to 50 lbs and takes up over six cubic feet of storage space. “The slip sheets’ size and weight allows companies to ship more product, improve sanitation, save warehouse space and reduce the cost of each unit load shipped,” said Franck.

The Rehrig Slip Sheet is manufactured using nearly 100% recycled HDPE resin and may be reusable in certain applications. Rehrig offers a buy-back program which assures the value of the material at the end of the sheets’ useful life. Slip Sheets are available in standard or custom sizes to meet each customer’s requirements and with different COFs depending on the application.

Rehrig also provides asset recovery programs and reverse logistics solutions, which can further reduce the average shipping cost per unit load, through Rehrig Penn Logistics (RPL), a Rehrig subsidiary. RPL develops customized pooling solutions and provides a full service for the various products Rehrig manufactures.

www.businesswire.com

Ecolab's ProTec System Earns 2010 German Packaging Award

Ecolab Inc. announced that its newly launched ProTec storage system recently won the 2010 German Packaging Award in the transport category. The award, sponsored by the German Packaging Institute, was announced on September 27 at FachPack, a trade fair for packaging solutions in Nuremberg, Germany. This year's award placed special emphasis on sustainability and efficiency factors in which ProTec excelled.

ProTec is a sustainable and efficient transport and storage container for liquid detergents. It includes a 200-litre drum with an integrated drip tray; if the drum inside leaks, the patent-pending ProTec container collects the spilled liquid.

As a 100 percent closed system, ProTec helps eliminate human exposure to spilled liquids. Integrated suction lances further reduce exposure to chemicals and machinery, and complete drum changes can take as little as thirty seconds. Finally, empty drums are cleaned and re-used by Ecolab, further reducing the company's carbon footprint by reducing the need to purchase further plastics to create new drums.

ProTec is suitable for various applications including warewashing and in building cleaning environments such as canteens, hospitals, airports, supermarkets and offices. It will be widely available to Ecolab's European customers in the spring of 2011.


With sales of $6 billion and more than 26,000 associates, Ecolab Inc. (NYSE: ECL) is the global leader in cleaning, sanitizing, food safety and infection prevention products and services. Ecolab delivers comprehensive programs and services to foodservice, food and beverage processing, healthcare, and hospitality markets in more than 160 countries. More news and information is available at www.ecolab.com.

Ecolab Inc.

Innovations in material handling increase flexibility, efficiency and ease of use

MANN+HUMMEL Pro Tec introduces further developments and expansions of its innovative systems for drying, conveying and dosing of free flowing plastics in hall 9, stand D60 in Düsseldorf. Single workplace solutions and solutions for complete factories offer great operating comfort and flexibility for stable, efficient and economic process management in extrusion, injection moulding, calendering or blow moulding.

Module dryer update – small load dryer for engineering plastics

The new generation of stationary material drying systems is presented at the K with the example of a SOMOS® D200 dry air dryer (air flow 200 m³/h) and a module hopper system with drying hoppers from 50 to 300 l. The technical innovations in design, process control and control engineering that are utilised here combine great operating comfort with a further improvement in energy efficiency. This results amongst other things in the new process control of the rotary desiccant container of the D dryer taking a much shorter time for regeneration of the drying agent, which means that the energy required for this can be used more effectively. At the same time all module hoppers have their own control system structured on a universal concept. This independent mode of operation makes things like the expansion of the module system through the adding on of one or several drying hoppers considerably easier. The tried and tested ALAV and Super-SOMOS® control mechanisms used in SOMOS® dryers continue to provide high energy efficiency adapted to the respective current material throughput.

The new SOMOS® TP 8 compressed air dryer extends the series of small load dryers specially designed for multi-component injection moulding in the processing of engineering plastics. With an insulated drying hopper of eight litres capacity and a freely selectable drying temperature from 60 to 180°C it is suitable for throughputs of up to approx. 2 kg/h. The dryer works on the principle of air expansion and can be fitted with conveyer equipment that is operated directly from the dryer control unit.

Communicating conveyer equipment – high-precision, gravimetric dosing of small amounts

The current SOMOS® FG series of suction conveying equipment differs from existing models particularly in its range of features: the devices are fitted with control units which can communicate with each other. There are also cost advantages with this further feature, as up to 16 conveyer units can now be flexibly linked together to a composite without the requirement of a central control.

Another innovation at the K is a fully weighing dosing system for small amounts which can be used in the SOMOS® Gramix S9 or Gramix E gravimetric dosing and mixing systems for the production of multi-component mixtures for extrusion processes. Designed for throughputs of approx. 2 kg/h down to 200 g/h, a dosing precision of ± 1 % is achieved. In a throughput of 200 g/h the target weight of approx. 3.3 g/min thus varies on average by a mere ± 33 mg. This high dosing precision has clear advantages in the increasingly used practice of dosing very small amounts of highly concentrated masterbatches into the main flow of material.

Mann+Hummel ProTec GmbH

Georg Fischer expanding new Beijing pipe plant

Plastic pipe maker Georg Fischer Piping Systems has opened a plant in Beijing to tap what it said is demand for higher-quality building components, as it saw sales growth there rise 45 percent in the first half of the year.

The Schaffhausen, Switzerland-based firm said the 58 million Chinese yuan ($8.7 million) Beijing factory has the capacity to make 20,000 kilometers of pipe annually. China is now its largest market, the company said.

The investment came as the firm announced a partnership in September with Dow Chemical Co. to promote a new Chinese national standard for polyethylene raised-temperature-resistance pipe for hot and cold water applications.

That new standard will create opportunities because it will “carve out a high performance segment” in China’s existing pipe market and increase regulatory standards, the company said. The two firms plan a series of technical seminars across China targeting designers, testing bodies and others.

As China has sought to upgrade its water and gas piping systems, and consumers pushed for more reliable systems, China accounted for 14 percent of GF Piping Systems total sales in 2009, and that is likely to be “significantly more” in 2010, said Pietro Lori, president of GF Piping, in a statement.

The piping systems unit had 2009 sales of 1.06 billion Swiss francs ($1.09 billion), down 13 percent from 2008, as the company implemented restructuring and cost cutting programs. First half 2010 sales in the unit were 584 million Swiss francs ($603.0 million).

Lori said he expects the 16,700 square meter Beijing factory to be at high capacity utilization rates within two years.

It will open with two extrusion lines, with plans to add additional lines to boost capacity to 80,000 kilometers of pipe annually, likely within one year of finishing the initial phase of investment, the company said. That initial phase is expected to be complete in August 2011.

The factory employs 60 now with plans to add another 100 by the end of the initial phase.

The Beijing factory will make building technology systems for hot and cold water installations, along with heating and geothermal systems. It will also make fittings, valves, instrumentation and control technology, and will have an on-site training facility.

The factory gives GF Piping 12 factories in Asia, doubling its footprint there in the last five years, the company said. It opened a manufacturing operation in India last year, and one in Malaysia in 2008.

Source: http://plasticsnews.com

Arkema opening PVDF plant in China

French materials firm Arkema Group will open a new polyvinylidene fluoride plant in China early next year, its first PVDF facility in Asia.

The company will open the factory at its large manufacturing complex in Changshu, Jiangsu province, and said it is part of an effort to strengthen distribution of its Kynar PVDF resins in Asia. In particular it singled out the high-performance coatings market.

A company spokeswoman declined to reveal capacity details or investment, citing company policy.

The Colombes, France-based company said the Kynar resins are used in a wide variety of applications, including high-performance lithium ion batteries and photovoltaic panels.

http://plasticsnews.com

Curbell Plastics Announces the Acquisition of the Business of Plastic Supply, Inc. in Tacoma, Washington

Curbell Plastics, Inc. is pleased to announce the acquisition of the business of Plastic Supply, Inc. in Tacoma, Washington.

Plastic Supply will become one of Curbell’s 15 sales and distribution facilities strategically located throughout the United States. The acquisition is part of Curbell’s continuing efforts to increase their national presence and it will allow Curbell to improve the service provided to customers within the geographic region. Curbell is committed to investing resources to improve the infrastructure of the business and to do what is necessary to enhance the buying experience for both new and existing customers.

"The acquisition further expands the reach of Curbell Plastics’ broad product line and exceptional customer service within the Western United States, while also offering a trusted channel to market for our supplier base,” says James Forcellina, Curbell Plastics Regional Director – Western US.

To learn more about Curbell Plastics, please visit www.curbellplastics.com. To speak with a Curbell representative locally, dial toll-free 1.888.CURBELL (1.888.287.2355).

Curbell Plastics supplies hundreds of plastic products to serve key industries throughout the United States and Canada from locations nationwide. It has evolved into one of the nation\'s largest suppliers of plastic sheet, rod, tube, films, adhesives, sealants, tapes, prototyping materials, and fabricated parts. Curbell Plastics, Inc. is a subsidiary of Curbell, Inc., a privately-held business
headquartered in Orchard Park, NY. Curbell, Inc. the parent company, established in 1942, employs more than 400 nationwide. Serving its customers for more than sixty-five years, Curbell is a progressive organization driven by strong values with a proud Dun & Bradstreet credit rating of a 4A1.

Curbell Plastics, Inc

Assocomaplast celebrates its 50 years

Assocomaplast - Italian plastics and rubber processing machinery and molds manufacturers' association - reached its 50th anniversary, as it was founded in Milan on September 28, 1960.

The association - Which now has 143 active members representing, around 90% of the Italian sector's turnover - was started by a group of companies 8, further joined by many other plastics and rubber processing machinery and auxiliary equipment manufacturers.

Shortly after, Assocomaplast, together with French and German national associations, promoted the creation of the Europe's association Euromap.

To celebrate its birthday, the association will organize a gala dinner on Saturday October 9, at the Museum of Science and Technology "Leonardo da Vinci" in Milan. The location is not casual: as a matter of fact, the Museum hosts a section devoted to plastics and rubber, that was inaugurated some years ago, confirming the essential contribution provided even by Italian scientists to the development of plastics applications.

On the occasion of the celebration, the founders and other personalities who have been working over these 50 years and strength to sustain the association's activity will be awarded a special prize for their long-lasting commitment in the sector.

Assocomaplast