Dear Readers,
With "Operation Clean Sweep®" (OCS), the plastics industry has launched a broadly based international initiative against pellet losses, which is now active in more than sixty countries. In order to demonstrate their commitment to a clean environment, companies along the entire plastics supply chain have, as part of the OCS® initiative, voluntarily committed themselves to avoid the discharge of plastic pellets, flakes and powders into the environment. The programme is particularly targeted at avoiding discharges into the aquatic and terrestrial environment. For this purpose, the European association of plastics producers, Plastics Europe, and the European Plastics Converters Association (EuPC), together with a committee of experts, have drawn up a certification system. OCS defines measures and requirements on how companies can install the program in their plants and facilities and how they can implement it in practice. These implementation measures are certified in corresponding audits. Plastics Europe Deutschland, KunststoffSwiss and TÜV-Nord, in cooperation with BKV GmbH, recently offered a joint webinar on the basic principles, which, as you can read in this newsletter, offers an interesting insight into the details and conditions of the certification.
At international level, an inter-governmental committee of the United Nations is currently preparing a draft for a global, legally binding agreement to combat environmental pollution through improperly disposed-of plastic waste. Some countries and environmental associations are calling for plastics production to be limited in order to get a grip on the problem and drastically reduce discharges of plastic litter into seas, rivers and onto the land by the year 2040. The significance and the concerns for the plastics industry and the chemical industry are illustrated not only by an article in our newsletter, but also becomes clear in an interview we held on this topic with Dr. Klaus Wittstock, Director Industry Affairs of BASF SE and a member of the Advisory Committee of BKV GmbH.
A completely different perspective of plastic, namely that of the visual arts of the last seven decades, was given by an exhibition in the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, which was held from the end of June to the beginning of October. You can read more about it in this newsletter.
We wish you an interesting read and trust it will also be helpful in your work.
Kind regards,
BKV GmbH FCIO (Austrian Chemical Industry Association) IK Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen e.V. (German Plastics Packaging Industry Association) PlasticsEurope Deutschland e.V. VDMA Association Plastics and Rubber Machinery
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