Plastic firms and recyclers win SPE environmental awards

The Society of Plastic Engineers will present its Environmental Awards at a ceremony tomorrow in Orlando, Fla. as part of the 2007 Global Plastics Environmental Conference, Environmental Innovation: Plastics Recycling and Sustainability. The organization will recognize corporations and institutions who have demonstrated leadership, excellence and innovation in seven total categories.

GE Plastics will receive this year’s award for New Technologies in Process because of its Valox iQ and Xenoy iQ resins. These resin grades are synthesized from used polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, offering virgin thermoplastic properties with a smaller carbon footprint. GE Plastics estimates that if all PBT plastic globally used the iQ technology, it would result in an annual reduction of 5.2 million barrels of oil.

Cereplast, Inc. has won the award for New Technologies in Materials for its bio-based and compostable resin solutions. These resins can be used in processes like injection molding, thermoforming, blow molding and extrusion using existing manufacturing equipment.

The New Technologies in Renewables award will go to InterfaceFABRIC for its bio-based fabric-composting project. The company teamed up with several companies and organizations on a compostand project for one of its bio-based polylactic acid (PLA) Terratex fabrics.

A joint effort to develop and market a bio-based solution for resins and toners in the office copier and print industry between the Battelle Memorial Institute, Advanced Imaging Resources, LLC (AIR) and Ohio Soybean Council has won the 2007 Design for Sustainability award.

Cargill, Inc.‘s bio-based BiOH polyols will be honoured in the Emerging Technologies category. The family of polyols was developed for major urethane applications, including flexible foams.

The Enabling Technologies in Processes and Procedures award will go to an agreement between Argonne National Laboratory, USCAR‘s Vehicle Recycling Partnership (VRP) and the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council (ACC-PD). The research agreement calls for the development of new process technologies for the optimum recycling of plastics and other materials of end-of-life vehicles (ELV).

The Plastics Recycling awards will go to the Los Angeles Fiber Company for recycling and recovery of post-consumer carpet (pcc), and Advanced Environmental Recycling Technologies, Inc. for the development and manufacture of wood- and recycled polyethylene-based building materials.

Finally, the Dan Eberhardt Memorial Environmental Stewardship award will go to the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) for its commitment to recovering, reusing and recycling discarded post-consumer carpet before it is disposed of in landfills.

GPEC 2007 is taking place today and tomorrow at the Florida Hotel and Conference Centre. For more information about the conference, visit the event website.