An engineer scoops a handful of tiny pellets out of a stainless-steel canister at a manufacturing plant in the Netherlands and rolls them around in his hand.
Many waste items provide important value before being tossed into a bin. Discarded plastic products, for example, originally serve as packaging to keep school lunches fresh, lightweight bottles for efficiently transporting fresh water to hard-to-reach areas, containers for soaps and detergents that facilitate hygiene – and much more.
Plastic roads and buildings, the influence of energy and petrochemicals in geopolitics, and chemical and molecular recycling processes that could create a truly circular economy for plastic products were just a few of the topics discussed at AFPM’s 44th International Petrochemical Conference (IPC) in San Antonio last week.
As petrochemicals and recycling advancements give old plastic new life over and over again—from shoes and clothes made of recycled plastic recovered from the ocean, to plastic bottles being chemically recycled into fuel and a raw material to make new petrochemicals—what it means to “recycle” is changing right before our eyes.
2019 has ushered a slew of energy conferences to the oil- and gas-friendly state of Texas, and in some cases the media took issue with the lack of diversity — mainly women.
San Antonio, Texas – The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) today presented Senator Ted Cruz of Texas with the AFPM Leadership Award at its 117th Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas.
Visions of a more sustainable and tech-enabled future dominated the agenda at the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers’ 117th annual meeting in San Antonio last week.