September 2022

A team of researchers at Virginia Tech working with one colleague from Dongbei University of Finance and Economics and another from Santa Clara University has developed a process for recycling polystyrene that involves the capture of valuable products. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their process and how it could be used in large-scale applications.

Rubber is an indispensable raw material. A world without rubber would be scary. For one, our ability to move around is made a lot easier thanks to rubber tyres. Recently, the rubber industry has raised concerns about the global rubber supply. There are signs that both natural and synthetic rubber could face supply disruptions.

Plastic market reports for medical plastics, sachet packaging, plastic to fuel, food films, plastic compounding, and 10 more are featured in this slideshow.

In partnership with open innovation services company yet2, Bayer invites external innovators to share knowledge on sustainable flexible and rigid materials for use in its consumer healthcare packaging.

NEXTLOOPP has welcomed another household name, L’Oréal, to its 47 strong consortium to create food-grade PPristine and INRT-grade recycled polypropylene (rPP) from post-consumer packaging waste.

Plastic packaging accounts for most of the demand, followed by building and construction, according to a new report.

Falling prices of all five volume commodity resins was the trend going into the second half of the third quarter, and it appeared that could continue to the latter half, barring any major production disruptions such as from a hurricane. Among the driving factors were low demand due to the slowed economy, more than ample supplier inventories in some cases, a drop in exports, and lower feedstock costs.

Manufacturer Bridgestone has outlined plans to invest an additional US$42m to commercialize guayule as a domestic source of natural rubber and an environmentally sustainable crop in the southwestern deserts of the USA. The investment will be used to establish commercial operations by collaborating and partnering with local US farmers and Native American tribes. This will increase capacity by creating up to 10,000 additional hectares of farmland for planting and harvesting the woody desert shrub.

If you own a retro gaming console or have an old roll of packing tape, you’ve seen how plastics turn yellow as they age. Though the cause of this color change has long been attributed to the formation of molecules that act as dyes—the actual chemical changes that take place remained unexplained. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Polymer Materials have identified surface-based chiral nanostructures as the potential culprit.

A new conductive liquid silicone rubber (LSR) enhanced with graphene nanotubes from OCSiAl combine functionality and comfort for materials used in medical devices. The compound has been used for serial production of electrical massage treatment devices. Graphene nanotubes have been shown to be a game changer in the materials industry when an application requires electrically conductive properties.

A new extrusion-grade ABS has been added by Ineos Styrolution to its Novodur family of ABS specialty resins which boast a range of product properties that has made them well-suited for many applications across multiple industries. Included are properties like high impact strength, chemical resistance, high gloss and food contact compliancy make Novodur grades also a very attractive solution for many healthcare applications.

One of the world’s largest contributors to plastic pollution, China is in urgent need of more efficient methods of plastic recycling and reuse, as economic costs mount into the billions, according to a new study.

Since July 2022, newly made Continental Gravity mountain bike tires have been using responsibly sourced natural rubber from a project in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The responsibly sourced natural rubber is sustainably cultivated and processed through a transparent supply chain which is monitored by a due diligence mechanism. This ensures environmental impacts are minimized and human rights are upheld, by improving the living conditions of local smallholders and farmers.

Eco-friendly building materials can be a solution to minimize plastic waste, but challenges, including costly production, persist.

Kenanga Research has reiterated its ‘underweight’ call for the gloves sector, noting that sector players have been hit by lower average selling price (ASP), sales utilisation and crimped margins.

September 4 proved to be another sad day for the more than 200,000 rubber smallholders in the country, as news of the drastic decline in the world rubber price hit the headlines again.

Vietnam has rolled out multiple programmes to tackle plastic waste in the context of the region emerging as a “hot spot” for plastic pollution.

Vietnam’s rubber investment in Cambodia has been contributing significantly to the country’s economic growth. VRG’s rubber investment in Cambodia does not only help generate jobs for the locals, but also promote green landcover and rural infrastructure.