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.”

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