THE winners of the Plastics Industry Awards 2024 have been announced at a ceremony in London.
One of five new awards introduced this year, Sustainable Product Design went to JLR for its composite cross car beam. The innovation is a structural component that supports the car dashboard. Designed to be recyclable, it replaces a ‘difficult-to-recycle’ magnesium original with a potential 80% reduction in CO2 emissions.
The Recycling Machinery Innovation award went to Greyparrot for its Analyzer, which gathers real-time data on waste streams and uses AI to identify 89 different types of material more accurately than manual sampling.
EREMA Group won Recycler of the Year for Project Re:claim, a joint venture with the Salvation Army Trading Company to recycle thousands of tonnes of end-of-life consumer and industrial polyester textiles into rPET pellets that are re-spun into yarn for new textiles.
A record ten organisations were shortlisted for the Material Innovation award, with the trophy going to Notpla and Plastek UK for the Notpla chip fork made from biodegradable polymer made from seaweed.
Lily Atkinson of IPL Global won the Apprentice or Trainee Award and secured a £500 prize by the PMMDA. Professor Stefaan Simons of the Horners Awards Committee, on behalf of The Worshipful Company of Horners, presented the Unsung Hero award to Andrew Jones of Fisher Plastics.
For the first time in the history of the awards, two individuals were announced as Plastics Industry Ambassador for 2024: Richard Orme of Distrupol and Carl Futcher of PlastikCity.
Polystar Plastics won the Processor of the Year accolade, which looks at overall company performance across a series of different areas, including business growth, technology innovation, environmental custody, and community involvement.
Best Training & Development Programme went to Bespak for its Injection Moulding Academy. PlastikCity lifted the award for Best Business Initiative for the ‘PlastikCity on Tour’ promotional programme.
The three Supplier Partnership awards went to Sumitomo (SHI) Demag UK, Hi-Tech Automation and Nolato Jaycare for Injection Moulding; Adreco Plastics and Global Access Diagnostics for Toolmaker, and TH Plastics with Polypipe BHL for Auxiliary.
Matt Barber, global events director at organiser Crain Communications, said, “We introduced five new categories in this year’s awards and I am delighted to see a great mix of first-time winners alongside others who have previously won multiple times in our 23 year history. Congratulations to them all. The quality and number of entries we received this year was exceptional and the winners fully deserve to be recognised for their innovation, excellence and sustainability.”
