The winners of the "First European Plastics Innovation Awards" were announced by PlasticsEurope (Brussels / Belgium; www.plasticseurope.org) at its 2016 kick-off meeting, held in Brussels on 25 January. The prize for Best Plastic Design went to DSM Engineering Plastics’ high performance edging chassis, while the winner of the Best Design for End-of-Life category was Top Clean Packaging, for its wine/champagne pack. Evonik took the prize for Material Innovation, for its “Vestamid” NRG, while DuPont and Technology from Ideas won the Hybrid Product category with their offshore mooring tether incorporating wave protection for floating structures.

The award for Best Substitute Product for Enhanced Sustainability went to Dow Europe for its flexible bottle with PacXPERT technology, while Treofan and Borealis managed to outshine their competitors for Best Lightweight Innovation with their PP capacitor film of 1.9 μm thickness. The award for the last category, New Surfaces for Plastics Parts, went to Borealis Polyolefine for its lightweight primerless paintable bumper.

The awards were first introduced last year to highlight the importance of research and innovation to ensure the competitiveness of the European plastics industry (see Plasteurope.com of 16.04.2015). They are jointly organised by PlasticsEurope, European Plastics Converters (EuPC, Brussels / Belgium; www.plasticsconverters.eu) and the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE, Bethel, Connecticut / USA; www.4spe.org).