Nestle Waters says it will achieve 25 per cent recycled plastic use by 2021

MOSCOW (MRC) -- With the help of what it calls a key Canadian supplier, beverage maker Nestle Waters North America has announced that it will achieve 25 per cent recycled plastic across its U.S. domestic portfolio by 2021, as per Canplastics.

Stamford, Conn.-based Nestle Waters also plans to continue expanding its use of recycled materials in the coming years, further setting an ambition to reach 50 per cent recycled plastic by 2025.

The company is expanding its relationship with supplier Plastrec Inc., of Joliette, Que., and also working with other suppliers in order to nearly quadruple its use of food-grade recycled plastic, or rPET, in less than three years. Founded in 1992, Plastrec produces rPET resin from post-consumer containers. On its website, Plastrec says it buys approximately 2 billion PET containers annually from different municipal programs in Quebec, Ontario, and the U.S.

Nestle Waters’ latest announcement comes on the heels of its announcement last month about the expansion of its partnership with CarbonLITE, as the rPET supplier builds a third U.S. facility in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania.

"We want to take the ‘single’ out of ‘single-use’ bottles. Our bottles were never meant to be thrown in the garbage – we carefully design them to be collected, recycled, and repurposed,” Fernando Merce, president and CEO of Nestle Waters North America, said in a statement. “PET plastic is a valuable resource that, if recycled properly, can be used to create new bottles again and again. We’re proving that it can be done by making bottles out of other bottles, not ten years from now, but today."
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DS Smith to divest plastics division

MOSCOW (MRC) -- London-based packaging firm DS Smith plc has announced plans to sell its plastics division and is now "exploring opportunities.", as per Plasticsnews.

In its half-year financial statement Dec. 6, the company said following an initial review it had concluded that the business was “an attractive asset with good growth prospect." With ?327 million ($416.6 million) in sales in the fiscal year ended April 30, the business accounts for 5 percent overall sales of the total group, according to Greg Dawson, director of corporate affairs.

The company launched a strategic review of the business in June, through which it generated “a significant amount of interest,” Dawson told Plastics News Europe on Dec. 7. The business has been valued by the market at around ?500 million ($637 million), but Dawson declined to comment.

The company treated the division as “discontinued” in its half-year financial report, covering the six months to end of October, but according to Dawson that did not mean that a sales process had begun. “We are currently studying all the options and I can tell you that there have been a lot interested parties,” Dawson added.

DS Smith manufactures a range of flexible, rigid, foam and injection molded packaging solutions and claims to be the world leader in flexible liquid packaging and dispensing solutions for bag-in-box, with its Rapak brand.

The company has 11 flexible packaging production plants and 15 rigid packaging manufacturing sites globally, including the United States.
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Total offers 3.1% compensation increase, bonus to employees in France

MOSCOW (MRC) -- French oil and gas major Total SA has offered a 3.1 percent increase in compensation plus an exceptional 1,500-euro bonus to all employees in France, reported Reuters with reference to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said.

Pouyanne said on Twitter that the offer was made to unions, taking into account the company’s good results in 2018.

Total held its annual salary negotiation with unions on Tuesday.

Around 32 percent of the company’s 98,000 employees were in France as of the end of December 2017, according to company documents.

The increase and bonus measure comes after a week-long strike in November over pay and bonuses by hard-left union CGT. The protest disrupted production and distribution at Total’s refineries and fuel depots in France.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday urged companies that are able to do so to offer an exceptional bonus to their employees to boost purchasing power, as part of measures to appease the so-called yellow vests protests that have rocked France in the past weeks.

Several French companies including media and telecom groups Orange, Publicis, Iliad and Altice announced employee bonuses on Tuesday, while bosses of major banks agreed to freeze the fees they charge households next year in a show of support for Macron’s plan.

As MRC informed before, in December 2017, Total inaugurated the new units at its Antwerp integrated refining & petrochemicals platform, which have progressively started up in the previous few months.

Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them.
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M. Holland signs North American distribution agreement with Borealis

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Thermoplastic resins distributor M. Holland Co. is now the North American distributor of polypropylene (PP) from Borealis’ new PP compounding facility in Taylorsville, N.C., as well as imported PP, polyethylene, and Queo polyolefin plastomers and elastomers, as per Canplastics.

M. Holland is headquartered in Northbrook, Ill., and Borealis is based out of Vienna, Austria.

The Queo polyolefin plastomers and elastomers are described as well-suited for automotive, appliances, general molding, and non-healthcare packaging applications.

"Our business development group at is ideally positioned to support Borealis’ market strategies in North America,” Ed Holland, M. Holland president and CEO, said in a statement. “Borealis has a wide range of best-in-class materials that will greatly enhance our product offering for our clients."
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Vietnamese Nghi Son refinery begins commercial production

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Vietnam’s Nghi Son oil refinery has officially begun commercial production following months of tests, reported Reuters with reference to the owner of the refinery.

Commercial production had begun from Nov. 14, Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical LLC said in a statement, while a source at the refinery told Reuters the refinery was operating smoothly.

The USD9 billion refinery is 35.1 percent owned by Japan’s Idemitsu Kosan Co, 35.1 percent by Kuwait Petroleum, 25.1 percent by PetroVietnam and 4.7 percent by Mitsui Chemicals Inc.

The 200,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) Nghi Son refinery, 260 km (160 miles) south of Hanoi, offered its first gasoline export cargo in September after receiving approval from the government to begin exporting fuel products.

Nghi Son and the 130,000-bpd Dung Quat refinery, which began production in 2009, are together expected to meet about 70 percent of Vietnam’s refined oil product demand.

As MRC informed previously, Vietnam's second oil refinery, Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical, was ready for start-up on Feb. 28, 2018, its parent firm Vietnam Oil and Gas Group, or PetroVietnam said in February 2018. The USD9 billion plant, co-owned by Kuwait Petroleum Europe BV and Japanese firms Idemitsu Kosan and Mitsui Chemicals , is designed to help Vietnam cope with a shortage of refined oil products.
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