BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND — Europe's plastics processors group is assembling an Internet site that soon may include current market prices for resins and updates on European legislation. The European Plastics Converters Association, or EuPC, already has christened the site at http://www.eupc.com with a plastics recycling exchange system. That was a priority for political reasons, according to EuPC Director Alexandre Dangis.
``We did that to prove that recycled plastic is not waste,'' he said, and to counter charges from critics that plastic collected from Germany's Green Dot system and similar programs was being sent to other countries and dumped.
``We arranged for a Belgian converter to send 1,000 tons of polyethylene to a Dutch recycler. That was our first success,'' Dangis said.
Dangis said EuPC has ambitious plans for the Web site. The pricing area, for example, is contemplated as a way of ``driving down resin prices'' — a radical-sounding idea to North American processors, perhaps, but not to most members of the Brussels, Belgium-based group.
``The lack of stability in pricing has caused a lot of problems for converters and customers,'' he said in an interview at Interplas '96, held Nov. 10-14 in Birmingham.
Some of EuPC's national member associations, including an Italian group, already are collecting local pricing information for their members.
``I can't really give the European average price now,'' Dangis said.
He said it may take months to put the pricing information on the EuPC Web site.
``It will definitely come faster if prices continue to move up and down,'' he said.
Dangis said he also expects to use the Internet to keep small processors informed about European Commission legislation that affects them. EuPC has a database of packaging and construction-related legislation, and has a link to a European Community database that keeps track of the issues and whether they have been implemented by the various member countries.
``I think through the Internet you can easily inform small companies about regulations that are affecting them,'' according to Dangis.
Currently EuPC's site is offered in English and German. Dangis expects that some of the group's information will be restricted to a zone for paid subscribers.
For example, ``You may have last month's resin prices online, but you may have to pay to get into today's prices,'' he said.
EuPC is planning a series of four meetings on new information technologies, including the Internet. The meetings will be held in Italy, Germany, France and England, probably in conjunction with major trade shows or association gatherings.
