MUNDOMATERIAL

In March 2008 the European Commission adopted Regulation EC 282/2008, setting out the requirements for recycled plastics to be used in food contact applications. The aim of the regulation is to level the field accross Europe, since up to now the legal status of recycled plastics varied from country to country. Also, the lack of specific legislation made it more difficult for recycled plastics to compete with virgin polymers in this type of end market. The EC is just being consequent with what is already established in Directive 94/62/EC, promoting the recycling of packaging waste. However, the recent regulation covers not only food packaging, but also cutlery, dishes, processing machines, containers, etc. Only plastics already used in food contact applications, or complying with food contact requirements, are covered by the Directive. Excluded from it are the following: materials obtained by chemical recycling, which are covered instead by Directive 2002/72/EC on monomers and additives recycled... 
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I’m totally fascinated by a new experiment being done by a BBC reporter, Chris Jeavans: A month without plastic. As the title of her already popular blog suggests, she is going to go without plastic for a whole month. The rules of her experiment are simple: She must not buy or consumed new plastic for a month and she can keep using whatever she had before. To prepare for her experiment and fully realised of its impact, she first collected all the new plastic she consumed for a month. If you want to see a video of it – which I totally recommend – follow this link, with WRAP‘s expert Paul Davidson. He explains to her what plastic is used in each product, how it can be recycled and some of the easy alternatives to reduce plastic usage. To start with, she is getting a huge response in the media and creating a very healthy debate on how we use plastic. Just to see all the plastic an average person uses in a month can be quite a shock to some people. It has to be said... 
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Introduction Today I will discuss how the electronics market is changing its approach to sustainability, forced mainly by legislation. When talking about electronics, many products are included: mobiles, computers, DVD and CD players, etc. A 2007 report of the UN University estimated that the amount of new electrical and electronic equipment, EEE, put in 2005 in the EU27 market was 10.3 million tonnes. The waste generated by electronic and electrical equipment, WEEE, in 2005 was lower, between 8.3 and 9.1 million tonnes. The same report also forecasts that in 2020, WEEE will reach 12.3 million tonnes. The volume of electronic waste generated by Europe and the concerns raised by how this waste is treated have lead, among other factors, to three European directives: WEEE, RoHS and REACH. By concerns about how WEEE is treated in developing countries, see the links under Others, at the bottom of the post. WEEE directive, Waste electrical and electronic equipment, 2002/96/EC This directive... 
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The 10th of July Dow announced the buying of Rohm & Haas for $18.8 billions. For those of you not familiar with the companies, let’s just say that Dow is a huge chemical company, with annual sales of $54 billions. Rohm & Haas is a smaller player, but it has specialised products, which have a better profit margin. And those differences are the key to understand this sale. Dow becomes an even bigger company, but also it acquires a business less dependant on massive sales that allows it to diversify its portfolio. The table below shows Dow’s divisions, together with the products managed by each. Dow's Products and Divisions. Source: Dow's webpage In the materials area, Dow is well known for selling commodity products. Amongst them, the big classics: PP, PE and PS. To stay alive in the world of commodities, sales have to be huge and a strong distribution network is required. Production capacities are so big that costs are lowered. On the other hand, such a big company... 
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here are several motivations for the starting of mundomaterial, most of them purely personal. Mainly I want to keep updated on the industry news, get involved with the new tools for comunication, expose my ideas to the world and wait for its reply. Just to introduce myself, I would say that I’m an strategy consultant, that i have developed most of my professional activity in the UK, I’m a polymer specialist and I’m pretty curious. What kind of subjects should you expect from the blog? My expertise lies in plastics, almost any kind. The other big area that does it for me is environment, so some of my favourite subjects are right between those two: Bioplastics, recycling, solutions to reduce oil dependance… We all have our preferences when reading and writing, but I’m hoping the blog will allow/force me to research new areas, outside my expertise. Some of those areas are nanomaterials, ceramics, composites and all those that i haven’t thougt about and... 
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