Plastic Bags and recycling

I used to work in the plastics industry, so here is a rather different type of blog post. 


I got a link to an article on Spotichemi which matches my views/biases (delete to taste).  A lot of negative comments are made about plastics which take no account of the balancing benefits - such as lightweight packaging, and improved food shelf life.  In any case, though plastics are visible, they are a tiny part of overall use of petrochemicals - and packaging is a small subset of that.


The focus on eliminating plastic bags is like swapping out the bulb in your fridge for a low energy one - whilst laudable in intent there may be unmeasured costs, and it is surely not the most important thing to focus on.  In your house you should probably start with your boiler/radiator/thermostat.  In the outside world, then avoiding oil as a heating fuel and increasing car mpg would have far larger impacts and are also relatively easy to achieve.


Getting rid of plastic bags may make you feel better - but does it really achieve anything of note, apart making people feel better about themselves as they load their paper bagged groceries into their 4x4?


Feel free to disagree.

Calderdale Meet the Buyer

More information about the Meet the Buyer event we are running on 21st November 2012.


http://www.businessgrowthcalderdale.co.uk/announcements/97/Connecting-Manufacturingl

Flexible Printed Electronics

I have wittered on for the past couple of years about the exciting prospect of flexible printed electronics as a result of working for PETEC, part of CPI in the North East of England.  What this basically means is that surfaces all around us can become video displays or solar cells.
The BBC technology programme Click has just run a section on this as developed by Plastic Logic as part of their Paperless special.  You can see it here. on iplayer.  It might not be up for long, and might not be accessible outside the UK.  The relevant bit starts about 9:32 into the programme.

Sustainable Packaging - 10th May 2012

I have the pleasure of speaking at a Seminar on Packaging Sustainability at the IOM3 in Grantham on Thursday 10th May 2012. 
I started out as a physicist, then slid over to a PhD in Polymer Physics, and onto work for ICI on Polyethylene, Polypropylene, PET and PEN.  During that time I increasingly appreciated the contribution that polymers made to our world, and how much packaging adds to it too.  Packaging, particularly plastic packaging, is seen as a modern scurge to be eliminated.  The good it does in protecting in the value of materials in transit, particularly food, is never mentioned.  The potential for further value from the materials through reuse, recycling or energy extraction is rarely mentioned for anything but glass (and don't get me started on why PP and PET are better than glass).

It is a key, and emotive issue.  But to get real sustainable environmental improvement we need to focus on the real issues, and not just the emotive ones.  The percentage of oil used to make plastics is about 7% last time I checked - of which packaging is only a part.  We burn the rest for heat and in cars.  Of course you can use plastics, and then burn them for heat.  The real issue is use of oil in heating and transport.

Of course with all packaging we should also be aiming to reduce the use (or weight), increase reuse and recycling - and this is not just environmental sense, it is good business sense.  There is no law that says that sustainable packaging has to be a cost to a business when compared to standard packaging, though suppliers may try to convince you to pay a sustainability premium
Anyway, that will be the general tone of my presentation - I'll put it up here when it is finished.