Page 39 - Plastics News November 2017
P. 39
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
EU project seeks to convert organic BPF warns against high costs of
solid waste into bioplastics 'no deal' Brexit
recently launched project will create chemical The British Plastics Federation (BPF) has warned against
A building blocks, biopolymers and additives using the trade costs of nearly 1 billion euros ($1.17 billion) if no
urban biorefinery concept to convert organic components deal is established between the United Kingdom and the
of municipal waste into bioplastics. Named Urbiofin, EU upon Brexit. According to the federation, the U.K.’s
the European project seeks to offer a feasible and more departure from the EU without an agreement — where
sustainable alternative to the current treatment of organic World Trade Organization (WTO) tariffs would be applied
municipal solid waste. Wageningen Food & Biobased to both imports and exports — could raise the cost of
Research (Wageningen, Netherlands) focuses on two
specific topics in this project: The production of medium- trade with the country by £880 million ($1.16 million).
chain-length fatty acids and derived PHAs via microbial Figures, said BPF, suggest that the cost of exports could
increase by £340 million ($447 million) and the cost of
imports by a substantial £540m ($710.6 million).The
figures were released on October, 17 as part of a wider
document, Understanding Plastics Trade, which analyses
the trade flow between the U.K., the EU and the rest of
the world.Each year, the U.K. imports £13 billion ($17.1
billion) of plastic products, material and machinery and
exports £8.4 billion ($11.4 billion).
“This shows plastics to be one of the U.K.’s top 10 imports
and exports, with the EU accounting for 69 percent of all
plastics-related trade, followed by Asia (16 percent) and
North America (8 percent),” BPF pointed out.However,
the data also highlights that the U.K. remains heavily
fermentation and the scale-up, efficient extraction and reliant on imports, with an overall plastics trade deficit
novel commercial applications of these bioplastics. As of £4.6 billion ($6 billion). “Out of the top 15 countries
a building block for high-quality products, sustainable with which we trade plastics, the U.K. has a trade deficit
fatty acids have interesting market applications, said with 13 of them. Breaking the numbers down into plastics
Hans Mooibroek, Project Manager at Wageningen Food & materials, plastic products and plastics and rubber
Biobased Research. “In this project we are focusing on equipment confirms this trend: the U.K. generally imports
the conversion of fatty acids to PHAs. A key advantage of
these microbial plastics is that they are produced from substantially more than it exports to trading partners,”
renewable resources and are completely biodegradable,” the BPF added.
Mooibroek explained. “Our specific objective is to Commenting on the findings, chairman of the BPF’s Brexit
produce so-called medium-chain-length PHAs (mcl-PHAs), committee Mike Boswell said the EU was a “vital market”
which are suitable for high-value applications such as for the U.K. plastics industry.“And plastics are absolutely
biodegradable agricultural plastics or biomaterials for crucial to the success of the U.K. economy. The U.K. is
the cosmetics industry.”The production of PHAs occurs in a successful exporter of plastic materials, products and
stages, said Mooibroek. “We carry the technology that we
develop in our lab on to partners who want to apply the machinery but also remains highly reliant upon imports,
process on an industrial scale. Together with our research making it absolutely essential that a favorable trade
partner AINIA from Valencia, which produces short-chain deal is struck with the EU,” Boswell pointed out. He also
fatty acids and PHAs from waste, we have recently visited warned that if no deal is reached, a significant increase in
another Spanish partner, IRIAF/Clamber, to make sure that the cost of both exports and imports will undermine the
they have the knowledge and facilities for scaling up the competitiveness of the U.K.’s plastics sector.
fermentation and downstream processes.”
39 N ovember 2017 Plastics News