Significant economic trends and sustainability progress in the PVC value chain will be explored by a host of global experts at the two-day PVC AUS 2018: Shaping the Future, Australia’s premier vinyl conference, in Sydney next March.
Organised by the Vinyl Council of Australia, the two-day event from 13 to 15 March will cover current and future issues influencing the PVC value chain, from additives, processing and technology to the material’s role in construction, industry and future sustainable development.
Supporting the event are headline sponsors Austria-based Greiner Extrusion GmbH, Krauss-Maffei Berstorff from Munich, Germany and Italian machinery manufacturer PlasMec.
Announcing the packed program, Vinyl Council Chief Executive Sophi MacMillan says: “Places are filling up fast for the only conference that brings together Australasia’s vinyl value chain to meet, educate and innovate as this sector moves towards greater sustainability. It promises to be a stimulating event for all involved in this global market.”
Australia’s PVC manufacturing industry consumes more than A$1 billion of raw materials and over A$3 billion of products containing PVC are sold in Australia. Top-level international speakers discussing topics related to this sector and worldwide will include government and industry leaders, technical experts and commercial representatives from Australia and overseas.
Expert speakers will include Eddie Kok, Senior Director at IHS Chemical whose global outlook for PVC supply/demand will provide an insight on pricing direction. Arjen Sevenster, Technical and Environmental Affairs Senior Manager at the European Council of Vinyl Manufacturers (ECVM) will talk about how the VinylPlus Voluntary Commitment supports the Circular Economy objectives for PVC and outline the forthcoming EU’s Plastic Strategy on plastic recycling and reuse.
Among the speakers on technological advances will be Nigel Jones, Technical Manager at Australian Vinyls outlining new developments in performance and delivery of PVC for that market, while Stuart Douglas of Innovyz and Dennis Collins at PVC Separation will explain a new fast and eco-friendly chemical technology to separate PVC laminated materials that provides an Australian solution to a challenging waste stream.
In the Trends in Additives session, Dane Tallen, Technical Sales Manager at Baerlocher UK Ltd, will update delegates on an innovative Ca-based solution that fits all PVC injection moulding requirements.
Recycling will be a theme pursued by several speakers such as Michael Barnacoat of ProGeneus, explaining how their innovative Resysta product can reduce building waste and pollution using rice husks and PVC. Following him, Helen Millicer, the Vinyl Council’s Recycling Projects Manager and Mark Richardson from Monash University will showcase sustainable and creative design concepts for tackling end-of-life PVC.
Sophi adds: “Our second conference provides a unique opportunity for Council members and their stakeholders to share knowledge and identify the challenges and drivers for the future. It’s a much-anticipated event and we look forward to welcoming you there!”
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Special rates available for Vinyl Council of Australia members. There are further discounts for company group bookings of three or more delegates, and great rates for social partners to join the welcome reception and dinner.
Register through TryBooking.com.
The 2017 Banksia Award Judges have released their assessments of the PVC Recycling in Hospitals Program initiated by the Vinyl Council of Australia.
Describing the scheme as a ‘world first’, the judges praised it as an ‘excellent case study of an industry's response to keeping its social license’ and ‘embracing product stewardship’ as its means to achieve that.
The PVC Recycling in Hospitals Program was one of five Australian finalists for the Circular Economy category at the Awards night in November 2017. While not winning against tough competition in this category, the extremely positive feedback from the judges on our award submission has given the Vinyl Council of Australia team much encouragement to take this successful medical plastic recycling scheme - now operational in more than 120 hospitals in Australia and New Zealand - to even greater heights. The scheme is aiming to recycle a total of 2,500 tonnes per year throughout Australia.
They also commended the ‘good leadership shown by the health industry and good collaboration between industries’, as well as recognising ‘good circularity – PVC is a good material for a circular economy’.
Established in 2009, the program has overcome challenges to divert quality PVC from landfill. Two Vinyl Council members, Baxter Healthcare (multinational and Australian-based manufacturer of IV bags) and Welvic Australia (Australian compounder), collect and recycle IV bags, oxygen masks and oxygen tubing. These are turned into into durable, locally-manufactured products such as industrial and garden hose and children’s playground mats.
Recognising this, the judges stated: “The program stands out as a unique solution taking a waste stream that would historically go to landfill and re-purposing it thus preventing virgin components required for new products.
“The issue of plastics and chemical use in hospitals is enormous and the lack of sustainability focus in that sector is well-known. Seeing a project that brings change to that sort of culture is great. Overall it’s an innovative solution filling a niche that can be expanded globally and sets an example.”
Vinyl Council Chief Executive Sophi MacMillan comments: “We appreciate this valuable feedback and agree completely with the judges’ view that there is much potential to scale this and expand it across other industries. Watch this space!”
A new house in a Melbourne suburban street has demonstrated that affordable Passive House construction looks within reach in Australia.
Until now passive houses were priced well beyond the means of ordinary Australians, and scared off both builders and home buyers. But retirees Sue and Peter, builder RMH homes, passive house certifier Grun Consulting, and uPVC windows supplier VUE Windows have produced an elegant, spacious home that looks like any normal new build. Unlike those normal new builds, however, the home will produce stellar results in terms of thermal comfort and energy efficiency. In doing so, they have opened the door to more affordable, comfortable, high performing homes in Australia.
The house features an expansive wall consisting of 32.45 square metres of uPVC double glazed windows and doors across the north-facing living and kitchen areas, including openable fanlight windows at ceiling height for purging hot summer air.
The argon filled double glazed uPVC windows achieve excellent insulation value of Uw 1.37 and a solar heat gain co-efficiency (SHGC) of 0.58, allowing winter sunshine to penetrate but not too much solar radiation in summer.
Read the full article about this house, published in Sourceable.net.
The Vinyl Council of Australia’s hugely-successful hospitals’ recycling scheme has been shortlisted in the Circular Economy category of the Banksia Foundation Awards 2017.
From its earliest beginnings in 2009, the scheme has overcome challenges to embrace more than 80 hospitals in Australia and 28 in New Zealand. IV bags, face masks and oxygen tubing are collected and recycled by two Vinyl Council members Baxter (multinational and Australian-based manufacturer of IV bags) and Welvic (Australian compounder).
Significant investment and commitment by these two companies and the Council has helped the PVC Recycling in Hospitals scheme to flourish and divert quality PVC from landfill into durable, locally-manufactured products. These include industrial and garden hose in Australia and children’s playground mats in New Zealand, which are exported to Australia and around the Pacific.
It is also being replicated round the world. For example, in the UK 11 hospitals are participating in the growing RecoMed PVC recycling scheme with high-quality medical grade plastic being recycled into horticultural products.
The Vinyl Council’s PVC Recycling Project Manager, Helen Millicer said: “We are thrilled to have been shortlisted for this sustainability award. In terms of significance, this Australian initiative shows that quality material from hospitals can be safely recovered and reprocessed to become durable, locally-made product in Australia and in other parts of the world.
“There is no limit to the demand for this high-quality material as a substitute for virgin in Australia and New Zealand. It’s a great step forward in terms of sustainability for PVC and the environment. It’s a valuable raw material resource that can be given a useful ‘second life’ in new products and that’s good news all round!”
The scheme is aiming to recycle a total of 2,500 tonnes per year throughout Australia. Currently, monthly PVC quantities from both hospitals and home patients (Australia & New Zealand) produces enough for 95 km of garden hose or 4500 cushioned play mats for children’s playgrounds. This displaces 14 tonnes a month of imported PVC resin and additives, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions associated with the PVC in new products by 80 percent.
Winners will be announced at the Banksia Awards ceremony in Sydney on 1 November.
Imaginative end product concepts for using waste PVC advertising banners have been displayed at Waste Expo Australia, a business-to-business exhibition for waste, recycling and sustainability in Australia.
Roof shingles, pallet slip sheets, floor tiles and a design for a water storage/seat for garden drip irrigation were among the inspirational ideas presented by Monash University at the event, held from 11 to 12 October 2017 in Melbourne.
The designs were created after the Vinyl Council successfully obtained funding from the NSW Environment Trust to identify ways to reprocess advertising billboard skins and find potential end markets for the recyclate.
Currently around 500 tonnes of this material are disposed to landfill each year, as well as larger quantities of grain covers and truck tarpaulins totalling around 5,000 tonnes per year.
Commenting on the designs, Vinyl Council Chief Executive Sophi MacMillan said: “A series of workshops and forums with the Outdoor Media industry, Monash University, UNSW and manufacturers have delivered excellent results.
“As well as producing some fabulous ideas for recycled PVC, the concepts reflect perfectly the Waste Expo principles of ‘Where today’s waste becomes tomorrow’s future’.”
Other ideas for using the reprocessed material include a woven fabric for should bags, skateboard skins and sound attenuation barriers.
Finding solutions to reprocessing the waste PVC involved close collaboration between industry associations, manufacturers, industrial designers and chemical engineers.
“As a priority recycling area, we are very encouraged by these early results,” added Sophi. “A new reprocessing method has been identified, which is proceeding to international patent, and a low-cost reprocessing method has been identified for some suitable product, leading to 2 tonnes recycled material per month.”
Chemson Pacific Pty Ltd, a Vinyl Council of Australia member, demonstrated a world-first for 3DVinyl™ material by 3D-printing a giant flower vase using a pellet-fed 3D-printer designed by Titan Robotics USA.
Titan Robotics had joined Chemson representatives at Rapid 3D, a 3D-printing exhibition in Pittsburgh, USA where it took three hours to print the 14kg vase. It’s a first for 3DVinyl™ in that all 3D-printing work conducted so far with vinyl, or PVC, has so far been with filament-fed machines.
Since unveiling their technological breakthrough in May 2016, Chemson Group, worldwide leaders in the PVC stabilizer additives industry, has been working on changes to the material’s thermoplastic PVC formulation. These include improvements to the Z-axis interlayer adhesion, impact resistance and thermal stability.
Speaking after the May 2017 exhibition, Greg Harrison, Specialist for Chemson on Additive Manufacturing materials and 3DVinyl™ co-inventor comments: “We have some more formulation adjustments to do, which will shortly be completed, but overall we have demonstrated that 3DVinyl™ PVC has a place in the industrial Advanced Manufacturing world of 3D-printable polymers.”
A short video of the vase during the 3D-printing process can be seen here.
Dr J.-Dieter Klamann, MD of Chemson Pacific Pty Ltd and 3DVinyl™ co-inventor adds: “Everybody is working on the printing speed factor…but - if you look closely at the complexity of the shapes, the biggest breakthrough is that they cannot be made by any other process!”
Excited by their success, Dieter and his fellow co-inventors, Greg and Dennis Planner, 3DVinyl™ Product Manager say it ‘shows a clear way forward for the industry’.
“After this initial success of having a printable version of PVC in the form of 3DVinyl™, the international Chemson team is currently undertaking concerted efforts to adapt PVC’s well-established unique potential and versatility for applications in the 3D Printing/AM world,” says Dieter. “These new PVC products will be introduced step-by-step into the 3DP community after basic 3D printability is assessed in our rigorous pre-tests.”
Welcoming enquiries from interested parties, Dennis adds: “We hope to engage and collaborate with industry to help us further improve the current formulation within the context of industrial and product manufacturing use cases that can’t be effectively emulated in our lab and previous field testing environments.”
Chemson plans to offer 3DVinyl™ in both filament and pellet form to cover a wider array of 3D printers and applications.