Over 200 companies connected with the plastics industry exhibited at the recent PDM (Plastics Design & Moulding) show held in Telford, England, UK. As sustainability is very much the industry buzz word at present, I decided to trawl through the many stands and enquire as to how important this new emphasis was in the market place and how many times clients actually asked for a 'green' perspective to be taken into account in a project. The results were somewhat surprising. In short, although sustainability is mentioned in almost every new article for the plastics industry and lip service is paid to it by many of the major players, few customers are demanding it.
Brightworks www.brightworks.co.uk, a small design consultancy in the UK run by Graeme Paterson, said that whilst their customers did not usually ask for a sustainability assessment, it was the design houses themselves that were aware of the importance of such a study. Whether obtaining such data from material suppliers was possible though, was open to debate.