Plastics Industry Awards 2008 Celebrate Success of UK Plastics Industry

UK (SANEPR.com) June 24, 2008 -- On Friday 20th June 2008 the eighth-annual Plastics Industry Awards took place at the London Hilton, Park Lane. Guest Presenter Jason Manford announced the winners to a record crowd of 500 plastics professionals and guests at the event’s gala dinner.

Divided into four main categories – suppliers, product, processor and people – the Plastics Industry Awards is the industry’s most prestigious awards initiative, recognising and celebrating achievement throughout the UK plastics industry.

The awards offer an insight into current developments in materials usage, product design and innovative manufacturing. Entries came from all sectors of the industry, highlighting a wide range of novel solutions.

“My congratulations go to all the winners of this year’s Plastics Industry Awards,” said Steve Crowhurst, Organiser. “The standard of entries this year was very high and this is a testament to successful innovation across all aspects of the plastics industry here in the UK.”

The awards were open to all companies involved in the UK plastics industry including OEM manufacturers, processors and consultants. Each award had different qualifying criteria.


Winners for Plastics Industry Awards 2008
PRODUCT AWARDS
Industrial Product Design Award, sponsored by DuPont
Won by Linpac Environmental Ltd of Corsham, Wiltshire for its TwinBin, a waste bin that encourages the public to segregate litter when they throw it away, helping councils to improve recycling rates.
Consumer Product Design Award, sponsored by DSM
Won by Liquid Lever Solutions Ltd of Hull, East Yorkshire for the Liquid Lever hose-fed irrigation system for individual trees, shrubs and vines which controls water use.

PEOPLE AWARDS

Apprentice or Trainee of the Year, sponsored by KraussMaffei
Won by Daniel Pearce of Numatic International, the Chard, Somerset-based manufacturer of commercial and domestic cleaning equipment. An apprentice working in the firm’s electronics laboratory, Daniel achieved distinction in his first year of study on the National Certificate in Electronics. He is actively involved in the development of new products and frequently stands in for the manager of the department.
Personal Contribution Award
Won by Philip Law, public and industrial affairs director of the British Plastics Federation (BPF), who has served the federation and the UK plastics industry for over 30 years.
PROCESSOR AWARDS
Best Technology Application, sponsored by Netstal
Won by DRFP Ltd of Sheffield for its SmartPoint, a dental obturation point designed to simplify and improve the reliability of dental root canal sealing. Trials have shown that the system provides easier insertion, improved sealing and a more than 90% success rate (much higher than conventional gutta percha products).
Best Environmental or Energy Efficiency Programme, sponsored by Linpac
Won by Axion Polymers Ltd of Salford, Manchester for its Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) recycling facility. The plant launched ahead of the directive coming into force last July and offers a fully certified route to recycle plastics. In the first nine months of operation the recycling plant processed and recycled over 3,000 tonnes of material that would otherwise have been landfilled or exported.
Best Business Initiative, sponsored by Gabriel Chemie
Won by Hi-Technology Group of Waterlooville, Hampshire for successfully establishing a manufacturing base in Slovakia to enable it to compete against low cost labour economies in the global market, an initiative which has safeguarded the future of its facility in Waterlooville.
Best Training & Development Programme, sponsored by Distrupol
Won for the second year in a row by Nifco UK, of Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland. The company’s continued deployment of systematic, prioritised set of educational and training development programmes have helped to turn the company’s fortunes round.
Best Health & Safety Programme, sponsored by Ultrapolymers
Won by Rosti Technical Plastics (UK) Ltd of Larkhall, Lanarkshire, Scotland. The judges praised Rosti’s proactive programme for identifying right from the start, the key areas to be targeted. With the active involvement of the company’s managing director Rosti combined the targeted training of key personnel with implementation of an effective health surveillance programme.
Processor of the Year, sponsored by Engel Moulders Group
Won by Nifco UK, of Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, which designs and manufactures functional plastic parts predominantly for the automotive industry. Strategic changes at Nifco helped the company to turn round heavily losses at the beginning of the decade to return a £2.82m operating profit in 2007.

SUPPLIER AWARDS

Polymer Producer of the Year, sponsored by HB Therm
Won by DuPont Engineering Polymers. The company, which operates from a number of bases in the UK, received high voter rating for the levels of material quality and performance which it offers as well as innovation in materials and application development.
Polymer Distributor or Compounder of the Year, sponsored by Summit Systems
Won by Distrupol of Chertsey, Surrey. In the past year Distrupol extended its useful and innovative range of comparator cards with the introduction of one covering clear polymers, enabling users to compare materials for specific applications.
Prime Machinery Supplier of the Year, sponsored by The Royal Bank of Scotland
Won by Engel UK of Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. The suitability of Engel UK’s tiebarless machine design for moulding pipe fittings has helped it to achieve a dominant position in this market.
Ancillary Machinery Supplier of the Year, sponsored by PDM09
Won by Summit Systems of Tamworth, Staffordshire which this year formed a new Recycling Division and created an alliance in this sector with B + B Anlagenbau, a specialist in machinery for washing, separation and drying of reclaimed plastics.
Toolmaker of the Year, sponsored by PRW
Won by Hanson Thorpe of Middleton, Manchester. Readers of Plastics & Rubber Weekly magazine rated the company for speed of response, quality of product, complete project support and investment in design and manufacturing.

For more information about the Plastics Industry Awards go to www.plasticsawards.com

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High-resolution images from the awards ceremony can be viewed at http://www.awardspictures.com/pia2008/

The organisers: Plastics & Rubber Weekly
The Plastics Industry Awards are organised by the Plastics News Global Group – owned by Crain Communications, incorporating Plastics News in the US, European Plastics News in Europe and Plastics & Rubber Weekly in the UK. PRW is the UK industry’s leading weekly newspaper, serving the entire polymer industry, which reaches 12,000 decision makers from all sectors, including the industry’s customers, every Friday. Its editorial is authoritative, informed and respected.