Toyoda Gosei Co., Ltd.’s production subsidiary in eastern Japan, Toyoda Gosei East Japan Co., Ltd. (TGEJ), is establishing a new plant in Ohira, Kurokawa-gun, Miyagi, Japan, where its main customer, Toyota Motor East Japan, Inc., is located. Construction of the plant will begin in April 2021 and production of radiator grilles and other large painted plastic parts is expected to start in the summer of 2022.

Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. announced that it will increase production capacity for passenger car tyres and light truck tyres at its factory in Tonawanda, NY, USA. The company said this is in response to the increased demand due to strong sales of its high-performance tyres for SUVs and light trucks in the North American market.

Recovinyl announced the launch of RecoTrace, a data collection system to monitor, verify, and report PVC recycling and uptake in Europe. RecoTrace builds upon Recovinyl’s 18 years’ experience of collecting credible recycling data. The PVC industry’s commitment to report reliable data has made Recovinyl an industry standard for data reporting.

The Automotive Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) announced a “Call for Nominations” for its 50th annual Automotive Innovation Awards Gala, the oldest and largest recognition event (established in 1970) in the automotive and plastics industries. This year’s Awards Gala will be held Wednesday, 10 November 2021 at the Burton Manor in Livonia, MI, USA.

Elkem has signed an agreement to buy a brand-new plant near Lyon, France, custom-designed for producing highly specialised organo-functional silicones (OFS). The purchase price is in the low double-digit millions of euros, and start of production is expected by the end of 2021.

Eni’s Versalis has licensed its low-density polyethylene (LDPE)/ethyl vinyl acetate (EVA) technology to Enter Engineering for a new LDPE/EVA swing unit to be built as part of Jizzakh Petroleum’s methanol-to-olefins (MTO) project in the Karakul region of Uzbekistan. The plant will be designed for a maximum EVA equivalent production capacity of 180,000 t/y. Value of the contract and an expected completion date were not available.

Hengyi Industries has selected Univation’s Unipol polyethylene (PE) process for a new world-scale PE plant that will be built at Hengyi’s site in Palau Maura Besar, Brunei.

DIK (Deutsches Institut für Kautschuktechnologie e. V.) and DKG (Deutsche Kautschuk-Gesellschaft e. V.) are planning a research project regarding the efficiency of antiozonants in rubber matrices. The project has arisen from the need to find suitable alternatives to 6PPD, which is expected to be regulated by REACH in the future. From this situation the aim results to investigate possibilities in ozone protection for polydienes, which are already available and known from literature concerning their efficiency.

Messe Düsseldorf announced that with immediate effect the registration documents for K 2022, the world’s most important trade fair for the plastics and rubber industry, are available at www.k-online.com/2330. The deadline for registration for all the companies wishing to participate in K 2022 is 31 May 2021.

With the world health crisis continuing on a vast scale and no possibility of a global turnout at the expo, the organizer UKi Media & Events has decided not to run Tire Technology Expo in 2021.