Processors get help navigating the path toward sustainability

Materials maker Envalior and distribution firm Nexeo Plastics are helping processors navigate the sustainability market.

"We want to dispel confusion," Taylor Burnham, Nexeo health care and sustainability product manager, said on a recent webinar hosted by Plastics News. "The sustainability market has been constantly and quickly evolving for several years."

Burnham explained that, in some cases, consumer and legislative approaches have affected sustainability. She added that circularity often is tied into recyclability, while a carbon mass balance approach focuses on energy, scrap and weight reduction.

Processors also are looking at part design optimization, as well as at compostable or bio-based polymers. Even within recycled materials, processors often have to choose among mechanical or chemical recycling processes or from post-consumer, post-industrial or ocean bound recycled resins.

In the recycling market, high density polyethylene is in good supply, according to Burnham, but for most other resins, the quality of recyclate "gets vastly reduced."

"Some legislation has specified the use of post-consumer resin," she said. "But to accomplish that, we're going to need other [recycling] streams to meet demand."

Bio-based versions of PE and polypropylene can offer similar performance to standard petrochemical grades, Burnham added. Other sustainable options are bio-based resins such as PLA and PHA or resins that use bio-based fillers such as sugar cane, corn starch or potato skins.

The global sustainability market "is facing challenges," according to Kyle Kampf, Envalior engineering plastics product manager. Envalior is a new business formed in 2022 by a combination of the engineering resins businesses of Lanxess AG and Royal DSM NV.

Lanxess and private equity firm Advent International of Boston combined to buy DSM's engineering resins unit in May 2022. The Enavlior name was unveiled in April. The new business is based in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Kampf said that Envalior is helping customers meet sustainable challenges with recycled-content or bio-based versions of many of its materials, including grades of Akulon-brand nylon 6 resins made from recycled fishing nets.

"Awareness of sustainability is increasing," Kampf said. "Investors are looking for it."

Envalior's circular portfolio of sustainable resins includes grades of its Stanyl-brand nylon 4/6 and Arnitel-brand copolyester, as well as its Ecopaxx-brand bio-based nylon 4/10, which has been available for 15 years.

Envalior also uses renewable energy sources at production sites in the Netherlands, China, India and Evansville, Ind.

Envalior has annual sales of around $4.4 billion and employs about 4,000 worldwide. Lanxess units included in Envalior make nylon 6 and polybutylene terephthalate resins and thermoplastic fiber composites. DSM units included in Envalior make nylon, PET, polybutylene terephthalate, copolyester and other materials.

Envalior includes DSM sites in Geleen and Emmen, Netherlands; Shangyu and Jiangyin, China; Pune and Pantnagar, India; Genk, Belgium; Kaohsiung, Taiwan; and Evansville, Ind. Lanxess sites included in Envalior are in Brilon, Hamm-Uentrop and Krefeld-Uerdingen, Germany; Wuxi and Changzhou, China; Antwerp, Belgium; Jhagadia, India; Porto Feliz, Brazil; and Gastonia, N.C.

Nexeo, based in The Woodlands, Texas, distributes resins and compounds in North America, Europe and Asia for more than 30 suppliers, including Envalior. The firm has annual sales estimated at around $2 billion.

Earlier this year, Nexeo expanded its MyNexeo e-commerce program to Europe. With MyNexeo, customers can shop more than 15,000 materials in Nexeo's catalog and find their most commonly used products. They also can access past order history, instant pricing visibility, real-time order status and estimated delivery dates. MyNexeo debuted in North America in June 2022.