Plastics News

ADNOC Logistics and Services, the shipping and services arm of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), has signed a contract with Borouge, a leading provider of value creating plastics solutions, to handle its Ruwais container terminal operations. The five-year contract, awarded through a competitive bidding process, is the first deal signed between Borouge and ADNOC Logistics and Services as a new integrated entity, following the integration of IRSHAD, ESNAAD and ADNATCO into a single ADNOC operating company.

In the Port of Amsterdam, a new factory is being built that could revolutionize the way we dispose of plastic waste. Utilizing groundbreaking technology, the facility will use previously unrecyclable plastic to create fuel for diesel powered cargo ships. The group behind the facility is Bin2Barrel, a Dutch company founded in 2012 by waste management entrepreneurs Floris Geeris and Paul Harkema. While the chemical recycling technology used in the past has worked, Bin2Barrel is the first company to utilize it commercially.

Nippon Foundation is a philanthropic organization active globally with a simple mission, social innovation. While its activities today cross many activities and borders, when founded in 1962 its efforts focused largely on the maritime and shipping fields. Last month in Houston we spoke with Nippon Foundation Chairman Yohei Sasakawa, focused specifically on Nippon Foundation’s activities in and around the world’s oceans.(all images copyright and courtesy Nippon Foundation)Please explain the most important activities today for the Nippon Foundation…

Inspired by yacht owners and crews and to coincide with World Environment Day, AMELS announced that it is designing drinking water purification systems into all new AMELS Limited Editions yacht projects. These systems can tackle the global plastic waste problem, while providing pleasant-tasting and safe drinking water. The new drinking water system is a great way to reduce the plastic footprint of yacht ownership.The AMELS yard has now designed remineralization and purification systems into its new Limited Editions yachts, to give crews and guests access to carbonated or chilled water – made by the yacht itself – wherever in the world they are. Remo Mayer, build captain of the 242 New Secret Yacht, said, “On NEW SECRET we came up with a system so we can drink our own tap water.

A steel cutting ceremony held today at Fincantieri’s Sestri Ponente (Genoa) shipyard marked the official start of construction for the second of three cruise ships on order for Virgin Voyages (part of Virgin Group). During the event, Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Voyages President and CEO Tom McAlpin, welcomed by Giampiero Massolo and Giuseppe Bono, Chairman and CEO of Fincantieri, also revealed the name of the series’  first ship, which is currently under construction at the yard: Scarlet Lady…

Offshore services provider Maersk Supply Service has signed onto a project that aims to collect tons of plastic waste littering the world's oceans.In the comping months, the Denmark based firm will provide marine support to the Dutch nonprofit The Ocean Cleanup, which will install its first cleanup system in the North Pacific as part of the planet’s first large-scale initiative for collection of floating ocean-plastic debris.Global plastic production has risen steadily since the 1950s. It is estimated that more than 5 trillion pieces of plastic waste now litter all major ocean basins.

New legislation approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday aims to address maritime transportation safety issues raised by the El Faro sinking, promote the U.S. Coast Guard’s awareness of technologies that could help improve service mission performance, and reduce marine debris.The Save Our Seas Act (S. 756), which was approved in the House by voice vote, combines several pieces of bipartisan legislation recently approved by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Kenyan islanders have built a boat made entirely of recycled plastic collected during clean-ups of the ocean to highlight the growing menace of plastic waste that ends up in the sea.Last year, the Kenyan government imposed the world’s toughest law against plastic bags, with offenders - including producers, retailers, and ordinary Kenyans - risking imprisonment for up to four years or fines of $40,000, in a bid to reduce plastic pollution.Many bags drift into the ocean, strangling turtles, suffocating seabirds and filling the stomachs of dolphins and whales.The construction of the boat has been

The damaging build-up of plastic litter in the oceans is increasingly recognised as a major threat to the global environment. Harrowing images of marine wildlife being trapped by plastic litter, or even ingesting it, are becoming tragically familiar. International Maritime Organization (IMO)'s long track record of engagement in the fight against this insidious form of pollution was reinforced last year, when its governing Assembly of Member States placed the issue of marine plastic litter from shipping on the agenda of its leading environmental technical body…

For the average person, tracking down a spare part is often merely an annoyance. But for the crew of a Coast Guard cutter, the availability of spare parts can be important to mission completion or greatly affect their work environment. The Coast Guard Research and Development Center in New London, Conn., is currently studying how the use of 3-D printing technology might improve mission readiness through logistical support. Now in the evaluation phase, 3-D printers are available…

The Indian Minister of Shipping Nitin Gadkari will perform the Bhoomi Poojan (Ground breaking ceremony) the Wardha dry port at Sindi (Railway) in Wardha, Maharashtra on 2nd October, 2017. The Dry Port is being developed by the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) in a bid to cater effective logistics services to the industries in Vidarbha region and improve cargo throughput at the Port. The proposed Wardha Dry Port is to be constructed over an area of 350 acres in phased development with a total estimated investment of Rs 500 Crore.

The Port of Corpus Christi lives up to its moniker ‘Energy Port of the Americas,’ as the movement of energy in and out dominates the port’s history and future. John P. LaRue, Executive Director, Port Corpus Christi recently visited Maritime Reporter’s headquarters in New York to discuss the nearly $50 billion in investment projects driving the port forward. “Let’s just start with what we are and what we are not,” said LaRue. “We are not a container port. Up until a few years ago we were an oil import port (serving) three refineries: Citgo, Valero and Flint Hills Resources.

Unique collaboration between industry, logistics and transport to keep plastic out of the environment. Plastics are found everywhere in modern life. The raw materials of which plastic products are made are polymers, usually delivered in the form of small pellets. Antwerp is the main polymer hub in Europe for production, handling and distribution of plastic pellets. Every year, millions of pellets find their way via Antwerp to other hubs in Europe. Preventing these small plastic pellets getting into the water or anywhere else where they are not wanted is a top priority in all these activities.

The beaches of Kenya's idyllic Lamu island are dotted with traditional Swahili stone and coral houses, mansions built by European royalty, the odd donkey and, increasingly, tidal lines of plastic trash. When a resident organised a beach clean-up that collected 33 tons of rubbish in a single summer, British-Ethiopian safari organiser Ben Morrison decided he couldn't stand by while his beloved island was ruined. So the tall, bearded 42-year-old decided to try to design a traditional dhow…

During the past month a pusher barge moored in the Antwerp port area on the Left bank of the Scheldt carrying four large storage tanks each 50 metres long. These cylinders came from a specialist tank builder in Germany and were carried down the Rhine to Antwerp. After being unloaded they continued their journey by night by special road transport to the Ineos Oxide site in Zwijndrecht. The British chemical company Ineos entrusted coordination of this project to Jacobs Belgium, specialised in project coordination and design…

Technology that could avoid the equivalent of 100 garbage bags of plastic waste being created per second received a funding boost at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday. The five winners of the "Circular Materials Challenge", which focuses on the 30 percent of plastic packaging that is too small or complex to be recycled and often ends up in the ocean, will share the $1 million prize to develop their solutions, said the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and innovation network NineSigma.

European shipowners welcome the Plastic Strategy adopted by the European Commission last week. The first-ever Europe-wide strategy on plastics, adopted today, is a part of the transition towards a more circular economy. The coherent and impressively first-ever Europe-wide strategy on plastic forming part of the transition towards a more circular economy also included the long awaited revision of the Ports Reception Facilities Directive. The new proposal aims to achieve a higher level of protection of the marine environment and introduces measures to prevent marine litter.

A consortium of companies comprising Air Liquide, AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals, Enerkem and the Port of Rotterdam Authority has signed a development agreement for the initial investments in an advanced waste-to-chemistry plant in Rotterdam. The aim is that this will be the first plant of this type in Europe to offer a sustainable alternative for waste incineration, by converting plastic and mixed waste into new raw materials for industry. These investments – for detailed engineering…

For 2018, the world containership fleet is expected to grow in step with global demand, according to BIMCO’s latest container shipping market outlook. Having experienced falling freight rates from August to year-end in 2017, most liner companies were successful in pushing rates higher in early January 2018. Most of them managed to hold onto most of the gains they achieved, considering October and November were challenging in terms of very low demand growth. The weak demand came from the Far East to Europe trade, and on the Intra-Asian transport.

A tanker vessel operator and master were convicted this week for maintaining false and incomplete records relating to the discharge of oil and garbage from an oil tanker that was operating off the coast of Texas. On Monday, operator Sea World Management & Trading Inc. and the master of tanker Sea Faith, Edmon Fajardo, pleaded guilty to two felony violations of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships for failing to accurately maintain the Sea Faith’s Oil Record Book and Garbage Record Book, announced U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick and Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey H. Wood. Both admitted that oil cargo residues and machinery…

The China Navigation Company (CNCo) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment (SPREP) have today signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to address critical waste management issues in the Pacific islands. Known as the “Moana Taka Partnership”, this MOU allows for CNCo vessels to carry containers of recyclable waste from eligible Pacific island ports, pro bono, to be sustainably treated and recycled in suitable ports in Asia Pacific. “This historic partnership will be of great benefit to our Pacific islands…

The number of plastic bags found in the seas around Britain has significantly dropped since 2010 as European governments crack down on their use, researchers said on Thursday. The percentage of trawls by fishermen that catch at least one plastic bag in the greater North Sea, off Britain's east coast, more than halved since 2010 to 16 percent, scientists in Britain and the Netherlands said. Prior to 2010, the average was 40 percent, said the study which spanned 25 years. Several European countries…

Plastic waste and marine litter pose an increasingly serious threat to our oceans and marine life. Canada is committed to protecting our environment and preserving our waterways, so that all Canadians can continue to enjoy the beauty, health and economic benefits that our oceans, lakes and rivers provide. The Government of Canada is working at home and with international partners to address this serious and growing problem. As Canadians celebrate Earth Day, Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change…