Listed D&L Industries Inc. said Friday after years of research and development, it can now claim to be the first and only company in the country to offer technologies which allow the recycling of single-use plastics and other products considered low-value or non-recyclable.
D&L Industries, which has been involved in the plastics industry for six decades, said its additives and compounds subsidiaries First in Colours Inc. and D&L Polymer & Colours Inc. offer the technologies that breath new life to single-use plastics, paving the way for a circular economy.
Many local government units have limited or banned the use of single-use plastics given their harmful effects to the environment when disposed improperly.
FIC and DLPC president Lester Lao said plastics is widely used and an indispensable material with many applications for everyday use.
“Sadly, a good percentage of post-consumer plastic materials which are considered as low-value or non-recyclable end up in landfills and those that are improperly disposed of find their way in our oceans. We believe that the key in truly utilizing the potential of plastics lies in technologies that enable plastics to be reincarnated multiple times, if not indefinitely, and that’s where FIC and DLPC come in,” said Lao.
Lao said the company has started R&D as early as about twenty years ago in developing technologies that can make plastics sustainable. To date, FIC and DLPC have been successful in coming up with a range of solutions that enable plastic upcycling, he added.
Examples of these technologies include plastic additives such as Plastibond® which acts as a bonding agent to allow various types of waste plastics to mix together and make them compatible, Polyguard® which improves the stability of plastics to delay degradation, and Deomate® which acts as an odor remover and neutralizer.
Instead of simply offering these additives to the market, FIC and DLPC goes one step further by providing custom-compounding services to fit the specific needs and applications of customers.
“We believe upcycling is the future of plastics. In fact, in certain cases, upcycled plastics can even exceed the physical properties of virgin plastics. This technology also offers another way for companies to comply with the Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) Act by increasing recycled content of their plastic packaging materials,” Lao said.
D&L Industries said it wants to be the forefront of the movement towards sustainable growth. The listed company said it will continue to innovate towards green chemistry and transforming itself as a one-stop shop for custom technology solutions for the country’s plastics industry.
