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WestRock Company (NYSE:WRK) has just announced plans to build a new corrugated box plant in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo to meet growing demand from WestRock’s regional customers in South America.

2015 10 18 094836“WestRock’s corrugated packaging business in Brazil continues to perform well, with strong relationships with customers in attractive growth markets,” said Steve Voorhees, chief executive officer, WestRock. “Our new corrugated packaging plant will enable our exceptional team in Brazil to serve these customers even better in the future, with a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that will provide new capabilites and efficiences for our customers, and to further integrate the containerboard that we manufacture in Brazil.”

The new facility will be located in Porto Feliz and will serve all industry segments and markets both in the highly developed Sao Paulo region, as well other growing areas in Brazil’s southeast region. Construction is expected to begin later this year and be completed in mid-2019. 

About WestRock

WestRock (NYSE:WRK) partners with our customers to provide differentiated paper and packaging solutions that help them win in the marketplace. WestRock’s 45,000 team members support customers around the world from more than 300 operating and business locations spanning North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Learn more at www.westrock.com

Source: WestRock Shared Services, LLC

When completed, the Porto Feliz plant will replace the company’s existing Brazilian corrugated operations in Valinhos. The plant will be integrated with the forestry and paper production operations of the Três Barras (Santa Catarina) mill and will increase the consumption of the mill’s virgin fiber HyPerform corrugated paper, WestRock’s high-performance paper line.

During the night between September 5th and 6th, there was a fire in one of the buildings at BillerudKorsnäs’ production unit in Karlsborg. The production was stopped as a consequence of the fire but is now back to full speed after a successful work to make the unit ready for production. BillerudKorsnäs estimates that the impact from the fire on Q3 results will be approximately SEK 35 million.  

billkorlogo"Our teams and suppliers have made good efforts to overcome the consequences of the fire and we are glad that we can inform our customers of this quick start-up", says Per Lindberg, President and CEO of BillerudKorsnäs.

The production unit in Karlsborg manufactures sack and kraft paper as well as market pulp for the Packaging Paper business area and has a production capacity of approximately 300,000 tonnes per year.

BillerudKorsnäs provides packaging materials and solutions that challenge conventional packaging for a sustainable future. We are a world-leading provider of primary fibre based packaging materials and have customers in over 100 countries. The company has 8 production sites in Sweden, Finland and the UK and about 4 300 employees in over 13 countries. BillerudKorsnäs has an annual turnover of about SEK 22 billion and is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. www.billerudkorsnas.com

Tableau customers can now easily leverage Seeq for connectivity to data historians, cleansing, contextualization, and modeling to enable insights on process data.

Seeq Corporation (www.seeq.com), a software application for process manufacturing organizations to rapidly wrangle, investigate, and share insights on process manufacturing data, announces a technology integration with business intelligence provider Tableau. With the integration, Seeq customers can leverage Tableau’s advanced visualization tools for their time series data, and Tableau users can leverage Seeq for data wrangling and modeling prior to visualization in Tableau.

Organizations in manufacturing, mining, pulp &paper, food & beverage, and other process industries use Seeq Workbench to rapidly find analyze time series data leading to better production outcomes including improved asset availability, product quality, and process efficiency. 

Seeq Tableau press release screen shot

“The partnership between Tableau and Seeq provides our customers faster access and incorporation of time series data, while eliminating the tasks of manual data extractions and time-consuming data cleansing,” says Sunil Sanghani, Head of Global ISV’s and Technology Alliances at Tableau. “With this partnership, engineers, analysts and operations managers can leverage Tableau to uncover insights within their time series data.”

Seeq has been recognized by multiple analyst firms for its modern approach to the pressing problem of finding actionable insights in complex data sets.

“We are very pleased to partner with Tableau, and look forward to helping our shared customers get even more value from their data,” says Steve Sliwa, CEO and co-founder of Seeq Corporation. “The innovative approach Tableau has taken in building modern business intelligence software is impressive, and it’s exciting to be a part of their ecosystem of partners."

Tableau Software (NYSE: DATA) helps people see and understand data. Tableau helps anyone quickly analyze, visualize and share information. More than 57,000 customer accounts get rapid results with Tableau in the office and on-the-go. Over 300,000 people use Tableau Public to share data in their blogs and websites. 

Seeq and the Tableau platform, working together, enable customers to get the best of both an innovative monitoring and a data management platform in Tableau, as well as rapid, interactive analytics on collected data provided by Seeq. Customers can achieve insights to improve production results, a task often too time consuming with spreadsheets and other general-purpose tools.

Customers with an interest in using Seeq with Tableau should contact Seeq for information on Seeq Workbench and connectivity options. In Seeq’s most recent release, R18, new features enable support for the integration of structured data from SQL Server, MySQL, and CSV files. This means data from these data sources may be seamlessly integrated with Tableau for analytics and insights.

About Seeq Corporation

Founded in 2013, Seeq is a privately held company that publishes Seeq, an application for engineers and operations analysts to rapidly find insights in process manufacturing data. Seeq is currently being used in the oil & gas, pharmaceutical, specialty chemical, utility, renewal energy and many other vertical industries to improve production outcomes, including yield, margins, quality, and safety.  Seeq is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with employees across the United States and sales representation in Canada, Europe, and South America. For more information visit Seeq online at www.seeq.com

The beverage carton industry has welcomed the latest figures on beverage carton recycling in the EU, showing that 47% of cartons were recycled in 2016, continuing the unbroken, upward trend since 2005.

The figure is equivalent to approximately 430,000 tonnes, recycled at more than 20 paper mills in Europe. The total recovery rate (recycling and energy recovery) reached 76% for 2016.

Commenting, Annick Carpentier, Director General of the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) in Brussels said: “We are delighted to see this substantial increase in the recycling of cartons across Europe in 2016. Separate collection is a key element in any type of recycling, and the continued increase in the beverage carton recycling rate across Europe indicates that beverage cartons are increasingly being collected, allowing them to be recycled.”

2017 09 15 085805

Significant progress has been made since the early nineties when ACE began tracking the recycling rate of beverage cartons in Europe. In particular, EU Member States with appropriate packaging collection systems in place are achieving increasingly high recycling volumes.

Richard Hands, Chief Executive of ACE UK, which represents carton manufacturers Tetra Pak, Elopak and SIG Combibloc in the UK, said: “Our sector is committed to supporting and promoting beverage carton recycling and the continuing upward trend in the EU carton recycling rate in 2016 is good news.

In the UK our focus has been on building access to recycling facilities for all. This year we hit our milestone of two out of every three or 66 % of UK local authorities collecting beverage cartons at kerbside for recycling”, Hands added. “And when recycling bring banks are included, 92% of local authorities now collect beverage cartons for recycling, ensuring that the vast majority of households in the UK have access to a carton collection system.

ACE UK has a dedicated recycling team which offers advice and support to local authorities and community recycling networks wanting to collect cartons. An interactive map on the ACE UK website (http://ace-uk.co.uk/recycling/where-can-i-recycle) also helps residents find out where and how they can recycle beverage cartons in their area.

To find out more about beverage carton recycling, visit: www.ace-uk.co.uk

Key developments have been a top MoOx/Au/MoOx transparent electrode, a bottom Au/Sno2 electrode, and a low temperature UV-irradiated mesoporous TiO2 scaffold

Researchers at the Centre for Hybrid and Organic Solar Energy (CHOSE), Department of Electronic Engineering University of Rome has recently published their results for a perovskite solar cell on a paper substrate. The findings have been published in IEEE Electron Device Letters.

According to the researchers perovksite solar cells have mainly been built on glass or PET substrates with ITO electrode. Paper offers the benefit being light weight, flexible, inexpensive, ubiquitous and environmentally friendly. Solar cells on paper substrates bring the idea of disposable electronics one step closer to with a disposable power source.

The researchers reported that the first perovskite solar cell on paper substrate incorporating a bottom opaque Au/SnO2 electron collecting electrode and a top transparent MoOx/Au/MoOx hole collecting electrode has delivered a The PCE of 2.7% representing state-of-the-art performance for solar cells directly manufactured on opaque cellulose paper.

Figure: CHOSE - First demonstration of perovskite solar cell on paperFigure: CHOSE - First demonstration of perovskite solar cell on paper

By comparing the results with those of devices made on glass and on PET with different electrodes, it is shown that the photovoltaic performance depends on the transmittance vs resistivity properties of the contact through which light is shone, the quality of the bottom electron-extracting contact and that of the underlying substrate.

The researchers have identified that future work will focus on improving these issues highlighted in the research paper, including enhancing rectification behaviour, and the performance of top transparent electrode as well as stability.

Finally, the current approach to manufacturing relies only on evaporation and solution processing making the perovskite technology easy to integrate with other electronic components based on organic and hybrid semiconductors on the same paper substrate. This sets the stage for powering paper-based electronics in the future.

"The efficiency was 2.7% which we believe is the highest reported for a solar cell directly deposited on a flexible opaque paper substrate. We also highlight the steps that can lead to 10% efficiency or more in the future by analysing performance of cells on different substrates and with different electrodes.

"All deposition processes are scalable and compatible with large area printing or evaporation technologies. Paper represents a lightweight, flexible, inexpensive, ubiquitous, and environmentally friendly cellulosic material, paving the way for integrating perovskite technology with other electronic components on paper as well as for the development of independent light-harvesting photovoltaic devices on recyclable and low-cost cellulose paper substrates."

Prof. Thomas M. Brown, Centre for Hybrid and Organic Solar Energy (CHOSE), Department of Electronic Engineering University of Rome

About Centre for Hybrid and Organic Solar Energy (CHOSE)

The Centre for Hybrid and Organic Solar Energy (CHOSE) was founded in 2006 from the will of the Lazio Region and the University of Rome Tor Vergata to create a center of excellence in the field of next-generation photovoltaics. CHOSE is distributed across several laboratories, both within the University Campus of Tor Vergata and the Technopole Tiburtino.

The latter consists of a 400 square meter laboratory that houses equipment for the fabrication and characterization of organic, hybrid, dye sensitized and perovskite photovoltaic cells, modules and panels and 150 square meters of office space for the incubation of spin-offs generated from research at CHOSE. The other laboratories, totalling roughly 300 square meters in extension, are located within different departments of Tor Vergata. At CHOSE there work more than 30 researchers including graduate students, postdocs and staff. CHOSE has also many collaborations at the regional, national and international levels.

The main objectives of CHOSE consist in the development of fabrication processes for organic and hybrid organic / inorganic solar devices, the definition of a process for the industrialization of these innovative photovoltaic technologies, the technological transfer of these and the development of photovoltaic applications in collaboration with companies at both the domestic and international level.

Source: Centre for Hybrid and Organic Solar Energy (CHOSE)

Wednesday, 13 September 2017 10:27

James Cropper launches cupcycling™ technology

Selfridges Go Full Circle in World First for Recycling

James Cropper is to reprocess disposable coffee cups collected by environmental solutions provider Veolia from Selfridges’ Oxford Street headquarters and stores, with the resulting paper being used to create the retailer’s iconic yellow shopping bags in a completely unique closed-loop recycling solution.

Once used, disposable cups from the food hall and offices at the department store will be ‘tipped, flipped and stacked’ – a process to ensure any remaining liquid is drained and the lid, sleeve and cup are separated. Veolia then undertakes a further separation process to guarantee all rogue items have been removed. The cups are checked for quality, then baled and delivered to paper manufacturer James Cropper for reprocessing at its innovative CupCycling plant.

The disposable cups will be upcycled into paper that will then be converted into the yellow shopping bags, with the final product containing 20 percent cup fibre, meaning one large bag will contain the equivalent of one 8oz cup. The remaining paper fibre will continue to be PEFC certified. The bags will display the CupCycling logo, verifying that the waste fibre has been processed through James Cropper’s unique facility, and after use will be able to be recycled in the standard paper waste stream.

2017 09 13 102610 2017 09 13 102624

Click picture above to see more

It is estimated that 2.5 billion paper cups are used in the UK each year. Until recently, these were unable to be recycled due to their polyethylene lining; however, James Cropper’s facility, which was opened by HM the Queen in 2013, possesses the technology to separate the two components. The paper fibre is rescued and turned into luxury papers and the polyethylene is recycled into products such as plastic tubing and cable wraps.

Chris Brant, director of retail projects and FM at Selfridges, said: “As part of our ‘Buying Better, Inspiring Change’ approach, we are constantly looking for new ways to make our business more efficient. One way we’re doing this is by reducing the amount of single use plastics we use. In 2015, as part of our Project Ocean campaign with the Zoological Society of London, we removed plastic carrier bags, microbeads from our beauty hall and single-use plastic cups and bottles from our stores and back of house. As we are already at zero waste to landfill, we are looking at further innovative ways to capture and treat recyclable materials.

“With our partners James Cropper and Veolia, we can take coffee cups, a waste product of ours, and transform them into our yellow kraft bags, thereby closing the loop on that particular waste stream. Not only that, but the bags can still be recycled for years to come. We’re proud to be the first retailer to upcycle our cups in this way. Our customers are becoming ever more aware of global waste issues and I think they will appreciate the story behind the bag.”

James Cropper will be showcasing its CupCycling solution at the Luxury Packaging Innovations event taking place in London in September, where its global packaging director, Susan Wilson, will take part in a panel discussion on ‘Packaging as Part of the Brand Story’. The discussion will be led by Vincent Villeger, a luxury packaging creative consultant and former director of packaging design at Burberry, with Susan being joined on stage by Abby Chicken, sustainability manager at Selfridges, for the Luxury Forum.

Steve Adams, managing director of James Cropper, said: “The fibre used to create paper cups is very high quality as only ‘virgin’ pulp is used to satisfy food contact requirements. Seeing this go to waste on such a huge scale is what inspired us to develop the technology to separate the two components. What we’re left with is material that’s virtually indistinguishable from fresh fibre and can therefore be used to create paper products of the highest quality, such as Selfridges’ bags.

“Our plant has so far recycled more than six million used cups – a figure that with partnerships like those with Selfridges, Veolia and others is expected to continue to rise. And we’re more than prepared to cope with such a boom, with the plant currently having the capacity to recycle 500 million paper cups each year. With CupCycling, we’re enabling brands to work with us towards a world that’s less wasteful and become part of a movement that has the potential to revolutionise paper cup recycling forever.”

Gavin Graveson, chief operating officer of public and commercial at Veolia UK, said:  “This is a great example to show how coffee cups are being reused as part of the circular economy. I’d like to take this opportunity to further encourage a mass collaboration between designers, manufacturers, vendors and consumers as we all have a part to play in making all of our packaging more environmentally friendly and ensuring our resources are kept in the loop for longer.”

Low odor binder for the board and packaging market in Northern Europe
BASF’s new low odor binder for paper coatings, which is based on styrene butadiene, is specially designed for odor sensitive applications in the board and packaging market in the Nordic region. Although applicable for all printing applications, the new product is particularly suitable for food contact and liquid packaging board. The low odor XSB binder is characterized by its minimal content of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). It complies with all relevant eco label and food contact requirements.

  • Newly developed low odor XSB dispersion supplements portfolio for board & packaging paper
  • Increased number of products with higher solid content

“The enhancement of our product line is a clear demonstration of our commitment to the paper and board industry. Our new binder enables best runnability in typical customer applications and with all common recipe formulations,” says Prof. Dr. Thomas Schiele, Vice President Paper Coating Chemicals Europe. “It expands BASF’s paper coating chemicals product portfolio and meets customers’ requirements as well as increasingly stringent regulatory conditions.”

BASF expands its paper coating portfolio for the Nordic market at Hamina production site in FinlandBASF expands its paper coating portfolio for the Nordic market at Hamina production site in Finland

Binders with higher solid content out of Hamina, Finland
Additionally, BASF is introducing new, high solid binders, which will be manufactured in Hamina, Finland. These binders are characterized by a solid content of up to 55%. They help to reduce CO2 emissions during transportation of the binder and during drying of the formulated coating color. The new high solid binders can help to reduce complexity in handling and ordering processes and are suitable for demanding applications with high performance requirements.

About BASF
At BASF, we create chemistry for a sustainable future. We combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. The approximately 114,000 employees in the BASF Group work on contributing to the success of our customers in nearly all sectors and almost every country in the world. Our portfolio is organized into five segments: Chemicals, Performance Products, Functional Materials & Solutions, Agricultural Solutions and Oil & Gas. BASF generated sales of about €58 billion in 2016. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchanges in Frankfurt (BAS), London (BFA) and Zurich (BAS). Further information at www.basf.com.

About BASF‘s Dispersions & Pigments Division
The Dispersions & Pigments division of BASF develops, produces and markets a range of high-quality pigments, resins, additives and polymer dispersions worldwide. These raw materials are used in formulations for coatings and paints, printing and packaging products, construction chemicals, adhesives, fiber bondings, plastics, and paper as well as for electronic applications such as displays. With its comprehensive product portfolio and its extensive knowledge of the industry, the Dispersions & Pigments division offers its customers innovative and sustainable solutions and helps them advance their formulations. For further information about the Dispersions & Pigments division, please visit www.dispersions-pigments.basf.com.

Stora Enso announced in February plans to permanently close down one paper machine 8 (PM8) and related reorganisation at the Kvarnsveden Mill in Sweden that could affect a maximum of 140 people at the mill. PM8 was permanently shut down in June, and the negotiations between central parties have now been concluded.

stora new 2017The impact of the reorganisation and PM8 closure was mitigated through individual solutions, such as early retirement. Altogether the number of people affected will be 122.

Stora Enso is convinced that through the measures taken, it is possible to improve the competitiveness of the Kvarnsveden Mill going forward.

Production at Kvarnsveden Mill will continue on two lines, PM10 for improved newsprint paper and PM12 for SC papers.

Stora Enso is a leading provider of renewable solutions in packaging, biomaterials, wooden constructions and paper on global markets. Our aim is to replace fossil-based materials by innovating and developing new products and services based on wood and other renewable materials. We employ some 25 000 people in more than 35 countries, and our sales in 2016 were EUR 9.8 billion. Stora Enso shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki (STEAV, STERV) and Nasdaq Stockholm (STE A, STE R). In addition, the shares are traded in the USA as ADRs (SEOAY). storaenso.com 

During the night between September 5th and 6th, there was a fire in one of the buildings at BillerudKorsnäs’ production unit in Karlsborg and the production has been stopped since then. After analysing the impact of the fire, BillerudKorsnäs now expects Karlsborg to be back to full production during the week starting with Monday September 18th.

billkorlogo"The most important thing is that no person has been injured in the fire. We have now assessed the impact of the fire and the work with making the unit ready for start of production is ongoing at high intensity. We expect full production to be reached during next week, i.e. the week starting with Monday September 18th. As it is a complex start-up after this type of event, there is some uncertainty about the exact timing", says Per Lindberg, President and CEO of BillerudKorsnäs.

The fire started as a result of a malfunctioning security valve leaking oxygen leading to ignition.

The production unit in Karlsborg manufactures sack and kraft paper as well as market pulp for the Packaging Paper business area and has a production capacity of approximately 300,000 tonnes per year.

BillerudKorsnäs provides packaging materials and solutions that challenge conventional packaging for a sustainable future. We are a world-leading provider of primary fibre based packaging materials and have customers in over 100 countries. The company has 8 production sites in Sweden, Finland and the UK and about 4 300 employees in over 13 countries. BillerudKorsnäs has an annual turnover of about SEK 22 billion and is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. www.billerudkorsnas.com

As the only European company, BillerudKorsnäs last year was named sustainability leader in the category Containers & Packaging, and included in the globally recognized Dow Jones Sustainability Index. In this year’s assessment, BillerudKorsnäs advances from belonging to the top 20 percent in Europe, to the 10 percent most sustainable companies in the world.

billkorlogoDow Jones Sustainability Europe Index covers the leading 20 percent of the largest European companies in terms of sustainability. Dow Jones World Index includes equivalent leading 10 percent of the companies worldwide. The fact that BillerudKorsnäs now is included in the World Index and once again named sustainability leader in it’s category is particular due to its performance within risk and crisis management, climate strategy and labor practice indicators.

"Being included among the most sustainable companies in the world is a great honour to us. Contributing to sustainable development is and will continue to be the starting point for our long-term strategy of profitable growth. Sustainability is therefore an integral part of everything we do. In a broader context, that means to always strive to take sustainability work a little further, to challenge conventional packaging solutions and working methods, and thereby positively contribute to a globally sustainable future", says Per Lindberg, President and CEO of BillerudKorsnäs.

BillerudKorsnäs sustainability work focuses on three areas: increasing customer value, responsibility throughout the value chain and contributing to a sustainable and bio-based society. In practice, that means to strengthen the customers sustainability work and competitiveness by developing smart packaging solutions based on renewable materials; to speed up the transition towards a sustainable and bio-based society by combating climate change throughout the entire value chain locally and globally; as well as to promote responsibility from raw material supply and production to recycling and provide engaging workplaces where safety, diversity and human rights are a priority.

About Dow Jones Sustainability Index
Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), launched in September 1999, is the first global index on how companies perform within economically relevant environmental, social and economic governance factors (ESG, Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance). Annually, 3,900 of the world's largest companies from developed and emerging markets are analyzed by RobecoSAM in cooperation with Dow Jones. www.sustainability-indices.com 

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