Two leading plastics industry resources are combining forces in the wake of safety standards and material specification company Underwriters Laboratories’ (UL, Northbrook, Illinois / USA; www.ul.com) acquisition of what many consider the world’s leading plastic material information resource IDES (Laramie, Wyoming / USA; www.ides.com). Following the purchase, details of which were not disclosed, the companies unveiled their next-generation “UL IDES Prospector” online database, which combines IDES’ plastic materials data sheets with UL’s plastic identification reports in one searchable interface.

UL said its Prospector database is used by about 319,000 construction engineers and processors across the globe to identify plastic materials for specific applications. Following the merger, the database now also contains UL’s more than 60,000 plastics recognition yellow cards, which detail material attributes such as small scale flammability and ignition as well as mechanical, electrical and short-term thermal tests.