Page 43 - Plastics News July 2018

FeAtures

Techmer PM faced several obstacles, as Primal Group plastics to the rest of its XPS NB line this year. And in
wanted a specific color and reflective finish on the 2019, Dell plans to use the material in additional products.
bottle, designed for their new plant-science-inspired While the initial project focused on Haiti, the company
personal-care range, ViTA. Typically, an extrusion grade is shifting to Southeast Asia, specifically Indonesia and
of polyethylene would be needed in the masterbatch as India, due to how much marine debris is accumulated
a carrier for the colorant. “But that wasn’t an option in there, as well as a cost benefit. “Many people believe that
this case because of wanting a truly 100% ocean-bound sustainability costs more, and we are here to say that if
package,” Loney says. “We made some design changes it’s done correctly, it costs less and can also be a brand
and manufacturing changes for us to overcome it.” The advantage,” Campbell says. “This is something customers
high-viscosity OceanBound Plastic supplied by Envision love and a big win for planet.”
Plastics is a fractional-melt resin that makes it difficult To expand on the ocean plastic project, Dell and Lonely
to incorporate the colorant’s metallic particles without Whale, an ocean conservation group based in N.Y.C. and
shearing them and ruining the ultimate visual effect. Seattle, have formed a collaborative and open-source
Working with officials at Envision’s Chino, Calif., facility, initiative called NextWave, together with General Motors,
Savvas Roubanis, a sales engineer at Techmer’s Rancho Detroit; Trek Bicycle, Waterloo, Wisden.; flooring company
Dominguez, Calif., plant, led the efforts to devise a Interface, Atlanta; sustainable furniture company Van
solution using Techmer PM’s proprietary dispersion de Sant in The Netherlands; office-furniture design
technology. company Humanscale, N.Y.C.; skateboard company Bureo,

“Compounding of the recipe required additional process
design to assure the metallic and pearlescent-effect
pigments could be smoothly compounded into Envision’s
OceanBound Plastic,” Roubanis says. “In the end, we
were able to fully disperse and develop the color and its
appearance to the approval of the Primal Group.”
Ocean-bound plastics supply chain

Envision Plastics also worked with Dell Technologies, Round
Rock, Texas, on its first ocean-bound plastic packaging
pilot in 2017 using the material as part of a new global
packaging system for the Dell XPS 13 2-In-1 laptop. For Ventura, California.; and furniture company Herman Miller,
this project, 25% ocean plastic gathered from Haiti was Zeeland, Mich. NextWave convenes leading technology and
mixed with other recycled HDPE from sources like bottles consumer-focused companies to develop a commercial-
and food-storage containers. scale ocean-bound plastics supply chain.

In 2017, Dell pledged to increase the annual use of Needing a home for the material
ocean-bound plastic 10-fold by 2025. The company also Envision felt so sure of the potential for ocean-bound
committed to open-source its supply chain to encourage plastics that the company committed to collecting 10
and enable broad usage of ocean-bound plastics.During million lb of HDPE from at-risk zones over the next two
the 2018 Re-focus Sustainability & Recycling Summit years. “Instead of just little one-offs and one-time runs
at NPE2018, Oliver Campbell, Dell’s director of worldwide with a little bit of ocean plastic, we decided that we’re
procurement & packaging, detailed the ocean-bound making this commitment in an effort to bring comfort
plastic supply chain and emphasized that it could be to brands, so they can commit too,” Lewis says. “We’re
applied to other industries. “I really want to stress that approaching the one-year mark and we are right on track,
this is not a novelty or a vanity-type project,” Campbell close to having to collect and recycle 5 million lb, but we
told Plastics Technology. “We took a cold business eye have sold only about 10% of that.”Ocean-bound plastic
to it about how to solve multiple problems—how to use costs more than both virgin and domestic PCR. But Lewis
ocean plastic, intercepting plastic before it goes into the says if more companies expand use of the material, it will
oceans, and how to make it economically feasible. We eventually get cheaper. “There’s definitely interest out
believe we’ve done that.” there, but it takes time for companies to make changes
Campbell says that Dell will expand use of ocean-bound and adopt it,” she says.

43 July 2018 Plastics News