In EPCA's July newsletter which has arrived on Friday afternoon, we discover that:
 
  • EPCA membership is stable at 554 members, the same number as last year.
  • 10 milestone cars will be on display at the exhibition in Mercedes World.
  • The new 5-member Executive Committee has representatives from: BASF, Royal Vopak, INEOS Olefins, Shell Chemicals and Odfjell.
And on 30 June, the members' area of the EPCA website showed that the Berlin conference already had 1,229 delegates registered.
Potato Portraits by Ginou Choueiri May 2009.jpg"I say potay-to, you say potah-to ..." but soon you'll be saying compostable plastics, even if it doesn't scan.
 

Scientists at the UK's University of Leicester have been modifying starch and cellulose into plastic materials which can be rotted down on the compost heap.

They are showing off their greener experiments at the Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition (#sse09), in London, which began on 30 JuneTheir exhibit, "Plastics from Potatoes, Rubber from Rice" is one of more than 20 interactive exhibits chosen for the exhibition.

Click here for the Blog's ever popular posting on dancing potatoes.

Heaviest potato found in Lebanon

(Photo Rex: Potato Portrait by Ginou Choueiri, Beirut, Lebanon - May 2009)

Barbie foosball.jpgThe Blog's favourite petrochemical toy is of course Lego. Look how it responds to the events of the day, with the Barack Obama Inauguration Lego and now various Michael Jackson tribute Lego videos.
 
However, Barbie is another top-runner for best petrochemical toy. She's plastic, pretty, she doesn't hurt so much when you tread on her with bare feet, and now you can get a healthy workout on the Barbie foosball table.
 
(photo designboom)
 

 

flaming redwhitebluedrink anne helmenstein.jpg(photo: Anne Marie Helmenstein/About.com:Chemistry)

 

On the occasion of 4th July, the Blog has found this flaming red, white and blue shooter which is an example of a classic chemistry experiment, the density column, in Anne Marie's Chemistry Blog on the About.com:Chemistry website.

Glastonbury 2009 Will Beacham 002.jpgWill Beacham, ICB European bureau chief, writes about his adventures at

Glastonbury in Somerset, UK last weekend, Friday 26 to Sunday 28 June ...

 

With the mud now removed from most of my clothes, I'm back in sunny Sutton's ICIS office to share my experiences. Barbara only wanted the highlights of Bruce Springsteen from the comfort of her armchair. But I can tell you it was worth the effort of trudging through the fields with a pint of hot cider in my hand to watch probably the most electrifying live performance I've ever seen. You'd better get a ticket for next year!

 

For five days each year, a few fields in a quiet corner of the UK's West Country become a throbbing city of 180,000 people. The Glastonbury Festival of the Performing Arts is a national institution. Started in 1971 by a farmer, Michael Eavis, who had an interest in music, it has grown to become Europe's biggest festival.

 

Whilst there this year, I started thinking about the organisation and economics of this event, plus its wider impact on the local area and on demand for chemicals. 

 

The local economy must benefit hugely from the festival. There were several hundred stalls selling everything from food to clothes to the "ShePee", which I'll leave to your imagination. Of the 180,000 people attending, 40,000 are workers: a major boost to the economy.     

 

The huge number of tents covering the site must also stimulate demand for the UK plastics industry: or more likely, China's plastics industry.

 

"Green" is certainly a key theme of the event. Woe betide anyone trying to avoid the queues at the toilets by hiding behind a bush or hedge. A team of "green police" (see video) wearing British Bobby hats coloured green patrol the site, blowing their whistles and chasing offenders.

 

The figures for waste produced are staggering. In 2008 the festival recycled 49% or 863.32 tonnes of its waste. This included 193.98 tonnes of composted organic waste, 400 tonnes of chipped wood, 9.12 tonnes of glass, 54 tonnes of cans and plastic bottles, 41 tonnes of cardboard, 66 tonnes of scrap metal, 11.2 tonnes of clothing, tents, sleeping bags, 0.264 tonnes of batteries, 10 tonnes of dense plastic and 0.25 tonnes plastic sheets.

 

This year the festival also used a fleet of New Holland tractors, all capable of running on 100% biodiesel refined from used cooking oil sourced in the UK.

 

This year I saw fantastic performances from Prodigy, Will Young, Tom Jones and Neil Young plus DJs like Pete Tong and Deadmau5. Don't tell any of my cool friends, but I also loved Australian legend Rolf Harris! 

 

Icecream van in Glastonbury mud on the only rainy day

Glastonbury 2009 Will Beacham 001.jpgWill and friends

Glastonbury 2009 Will Beacham 003.jpgThe shape of business travel to come 

Glastonbury 2009 Will Beacham 004.jpg

Ruby Wax and David Cartwright, Ineos P&O June 2009.jpgThis happy photo was snapped at the Madrid EPL on 25 June 2009, where Ruby Wax was the speaker. Here she is with EPL stalwart David Cartwright, enjoying a cosy moment at the dinner on Thursday night. 
 
Since it was a forum for chemicals and polymers people, dinner guests were pleased to report back that the tiny comedian was generous in attributing her photogenic good looks to the plastics industry.
 
Ruby's theme was Communication but as my colleague Nel points out, there's no communication problem in the photo here.
 
Click here for "Boiling hot at EPL Madrid."
Wimbledon Andy Murray Centre Court 29 June 2009 Rex.jpgAt last the new roof on Centre Court, Wimbledon, was rolled out on Monday evening, and in all the fuss about the roof and of course the first tennis match beneath it, and the lateness of the hour, was anyone interested in what it was made of?
 
According to its designers, Populous, the retractable roof is made of "durable Tenara fabric, concertinaed across the span of the ceiling. Held up by ten 77 metre roof trusses, each weighing 70 tonnes, the fabric displays a 40% translucency which allows light to penetrate and crucially reach the grass below. It takes a maximum of ten minutes to close the structure which used approximately 5,200 sq m of fabric to create. 100% of materials used for the roof are recyclable."
 
And what is this wonder-product Tenara? It's PolyTetraFluoroEthylene (PTFE) - most commonly known by its DuPont brand name Teflon.
 
While on the subject of tennis, it has been brought to the Blog's attention that the annual EPCA tennis tournament, held at the conference for many a year, has been dropped along with the other sports events, because of the relatively low number of participants. Sign of the times ...
 
Click here for more blog postings on spectacular petrochemical roofs!
 
 

Sports

bruce springsteen glasto 27 june 2009 photo Rex.jpgI was watching Bruce Springsteen's set at the Glastonbury Festival last night, recorded from Saturday, marvelling at his energy and how wonderfully comfortable it was to be watching with my feet up at home without having waited six hours to get near the front for the same kind of view. Even better, in real life (IRL) it took two-and-half-hours, but the BBC cleverly condensed it to just the good stuff. When I saw him in London at the Emirates Stadium last year, it had all the worst aspects of the IRL experience: he was a tiny blur in the distance, and it took ages to get home afterwards.
 
Still flying the flag for authenticity, Will Beacham, ICIS Chemical Business (ICB) European bureau chief, is immersing himself in the full Glasto experience and will be staggering back into the office tomorrow. He has promised me a piece for my Blog - something about the festival with a chemicals angle, and with accompanying photos. I'm curious to see how that's going to work out. Watch this space.
 
All the news and gossip from last week's European Petrochemical Luncheon (EPL) in Madrid is gradually filtering back to the Blog.  All anyone could talk about at the time was the heat: 37 deg C and extremely dry. "I feel like I'm turning to dust," said one Houston visitor, more used to the 104 deg F (40 deg C) and 100% humidity of Houston in the previous week.
 
The turnout was very good - about 130 by all accounts - with quite a few of the usual suspects quite star-struck by the after-dinner speaker, Ruby Wax. Fitting in with traditional Spanish culture, the petchem delegates were up late on Thursday night in the bar of the Westin Palace, where news of Michael Jackson's death broke during the evening, and there was much reminiscing and telling of jokes in poor taste, as so often happens at petchem events, into the early hours.
 
A few sights which took the fancy of the Blog's contributors:
 
Museum of Ham
 
Museum of Jamon.jpg

Dictator Dolls

dictator dolls.jpg

PS When one reader commented that he didn't get the relevance of the photos, our photographer commented: "Ham and dictators - you don't get more Spanish than that."

(Disclaimer: Opinions belong to the characters quoted, and do not reflect those of the Blog.)

 

 Artistic photos of chemical plant are hidden away in this corner of the ICIS Connect forum, where photographers have uploaded some of their most spectacular shots.
 
The Blog has followed the trail which leads to group of 37 member photographers on Flickr with a collection of 96 dramatic and stylish photos of chemical plant, taken by real enthusiasts.
 
With permission from the photographers, the Blog is thinking of running this as a regular feature - taking inspiration from fellow Reed bloggers at "BigLorryBlog" which is dedicated to endless photos of, yes, big lorries (trucks), and has an unfathomably huge and loyal readership.
 
Plant 1 Eastman plant in Malaysia.jpg"Eastman Plant in Malaysia" by Hanim Rafar.
 
Plant 2 LyondellBasell plant at Maasvlakte.jpg
"The new LyondellBasell factory at the Maasvlakte" by Peet.
 
 
Plant 3 Solvay plant near Barcelona.jpg 
 "Solvay factory near Barcelona, Spain" by Jorge Franganillo
 
 
 
 
 
 

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