Source : Plastics News
Auteur : Lauren Hilgers
SHANGHAI (March 30, 11:15 a.m. ET) -- BASF SE recently announced the launch of Hexamoll DINCH Trusted Partners Program, a system of auditing manufacturers and ensuring the safety and quality for toys and other soft PVC products throughout the supply chain.
The program is being launched in Asia and will be available to all users of BASF’s non-phthalate plasticizer.
“This is the first program of its kind,” said Albert Heuser, the president of market and business development, Asia Pacific, for BASF. Heuser spokes at a Shanghai news conference previewing the Chinaplas trade show.
Heuser also mentioned the introduction of the Smart Forvision, a sustainable concept car developed in partnership with Daimler, the maker of Smart cars, and the recent introduction of biodegradable agricultural film to the Chinese market.
“We are expanding from chemicals to chemistry,” Heuser said. “Plastics play a leading role in this--we are not only designing new molecules at BASF but also new applications.” With the global population expanding, BASF aims to focus on applications that will maintain people’s standard of living while mitigating their impact on the environment. The Hexamoll DINCH program, Heuser said, is a step toward this goal.
Hexamoll DINCH can be used in medical applications, toys, sports equipment and food industry applications safely. To participate in the Trusted Partner’s Program, BASF clients submit to a qualification process conducted by BASF’s plasticizer lab in Shanghai as well as a review by the international testing and certification organization TUV Rheinland.
By the end of the year, BASF aims to recruit around 40 companies into the program.
In addition to the new program, Heuser and Zheng Daqing, the senior vice president of BASF Group and a member of BASF’s Greater China Country Board, also discussed the introduction of Ecovio F Mulch, an agricultural film that biodegrades. In the past, BASF offered another line of biodegradable films, Ecoflex F Mulch. Ecoflex, however, would have to be mixed with other materials by the compounder to produce individual formulations of mulch film. Ecovio is a mix of Ecoflex and polylactic acid that does not need to be compounded.
“We want to work with China to solve the problem of white pollution,” said Daniel Hebert, the head of biodegradable polymers, Asia Pacific, with BASF. Many farmers in China simply mix their non-biodegradable mulch films into the ground. “This could be ruining the quality of the soil,” said Hebert. With Ecovio, Hebert explained, BASF can work with farmers to control the rate of degradation in the film.
“We’ve extensively tested this film in Europe,” said Hebert. “Now we are in the process of looking for partners in China.”