Page 79 - Plastics News January 2018

in the news

Vertical garden from discarded Long Fibre Pp Compounds

plastic bottles at Ludhiana Drive Automotive Innovation

vertical garden made from discarded soft drink bottles MI, Bristol, 4th January 2018 – In a new report
A at Gurdwara Dukh Niwaran Sahib is catching devotees’ Arecently published by AMI Consulting the use of LFT
fancy. More than 1,200 such bottles have been used for PP (long fiber thermoplastic polypropylene) is examined
creating a vertical garden on a wall of the gurdwara to in detail. The report quantifies the use of both granule
spread the message of saving environment, promoting LFT PP (LFT-G) and direct compounding and moulding
the reuse of waste plastic bottles apart from reducing in-line of LFT PP (LFT-D) tracking down its use around
pollution.The bottles have been cut and saplings planted in the world. The result is a comprehensive analysis of LFT
these after filling it with cocopeat, coal ash and compost.
The wall looks green and is catching the attention of those PP by application, OEM, LFT PP compound producer and
visiting the gurdwara. geographical region.
Devotees who were seen getting pictures and selfies Glass fibre and PP have long been combined to make
clicked before the vertical garden were impressed by the car parts. Whereas short glass fibre compounds are
initiative. “The vertical garden looks beautiful. There is longer established and the larger product family, LFT
a need for plants in the city due to increasing pollution,” PP is the faster growing.
said Amarjit Kaur, a resident.“The best thing about the
LFT PP is now used widely in automotive front-end
carriers, instrument-panel carriers, door-panels,
consoles, pedals, under-body shields and several other
applications. The exciting feature of many of these
applications is that LFT PP permits automotive engineers
to either replace steel and thereby reduce weight and
improve fuel efficiency, or replace more expensive
engineering plastics. An example is the award-winning
grille shutter on the 2018 Ford Expedition luxury sport-
utility vehicle. In addition to reducing weight by 3lbs,
cost reductions of $66 per vehicle through innovative
garden is that it has been set up by using waste plastic engineering are reported.
bottles, which are becoming an environmental hazard due
to piling up of plastic waste in the world,” she said. “What The report looks at the success of LFT PP relative
otherwise would have landed in bin and junkyard and to that of LFT PA and looks too at the increasing
added to environmental woes have been used for making internationalisation of demand and supply including
the environment cleaner, which is a great reuse of these recent heavy investment in China by the largest
bottles,” said Harshdeep, another visitor to the gurdwara. producers amongst whom are Celanese with its Celstran
President of the gurdwara management committee Pritpal brand, SABIC, Comusa (Funcster), Lotte (Sambark) and
Singh said the vertical garden works with the drip irrigation GS Caltex.
system, to prevent the wastage of water. “In fact, we will Demand for LFT PP is predicted to grow strongly 2017-
cover many more walls in the complex with these vertical 2021.
gardens, as these will clean the air, in addition to having
trees in the complex,” he said. Rohit Mehra, additional ‘Long Fibre Polypropylene Compounds’ is a detailed
commissioner at the Income Tax Department, who was global multiclient study published by AMI Consulting, a
instrumental in setting up the garden, said to save the division of Applied Market Information Ltd. For further
city from pollution, it is important to make the city green. information contact John Nash on +44 117 924 9442 or
“The idea came during our visit to Singapore, where such jsn@amiplastics.com.
vertical gardens are being used and we emulated it here.”

79 Januar y 2018 Plastics News