The Polymers for Europe Alliance (www.polymercomplyeurope.eu/pce-services/polymers-europe-allliance) has opened voting to assess polymer producers for the sixth edition of “Best Polymer Producers Awards”, and thus invites European plastics processors to rate their suppliers’ performance. The online voting will remain open till 31 August 2021, and the results will be announced on 13 September 2021. Participation is confidential and free of charge.

Due to the ongoing polymer production and supply crisis in Europe, the key criterion for this year’s edition will be delivery reliability, and the level of support during shortage of supply. The most popular suppliers can be rated in 11 categories by polymer type – PC, PP, PS/EPS, ABS, EVA, HDPE, LDPE, LLDPE, PET, PVC and speciality polymers.

EuPC (Brussels; www.plasticsconverters.eu) managing director Alexandre Dangis says, “The serious market disruptions currently taking place all over Europe are a symptom of the structural imbalance in Europe between the local production of and demand for raw materials and additives. The over 50,000 SMEs that form the plastics converting industry in Europe are suffering from limited supply and extreme price increases while having little to no leverage vis a vis the global chemical companies that produce polymers. The polymer producer assessment is a chance for these companies to express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their suppliers.”

The Best Polymer Producers Awards were created in 2016 to re-establish communication between European polymer suppliers and users. Besides the producers’ assessment this year, the alliance says it will keep assessing the polymer supply situation in Europe during the upcoming months. Together with the EuPC, the alliance plans to monitor, investigate and evaluate the force majeure declarations and overall situation, especially in the supply of essential goods such as PVC pharmaceutical packaging.

In 2020, the special award was titled “Circularity”, and the winner in the category was Spanish petrochemicals company Repsol (see Plasteurope.com of 28.09.2020).