PLASTICS, FROM PLAIN, TO BEAUTIFUL AND FUNCTIONAL, WORLDWIDE, RAPRA, BERLIN 2005

The Art of Plastics Design
Conference 18th -19th October 2005, Berlin, Germany

Plastics future to be boosted by creativity and design

Design is thus part of future developments and the new plastics applications not yet explored.

Many embryonic applications will rely on new designs, worked through plastics materials

There are many examples, such as use of engineering plastics in car power train, automotive electronic systems, industrial applications such as heat exchangers, the road is still uncharted for many developments not yet totally thought through, all to be boosted with creativity and design into the materials.

Plastics development and trends, the next ten years

The future demand for plastics is to be fuelled both by the continuing demand of the developed economies, albeit slower, but based upon very large tonnage, and the build-up of the demand from the developing economies, a replay of the last thirty years, with full use of the latest innovations everywhere.

The new mass tonnage developments will come from many new applications, like the CDs and DVDs having built up a large demand for polycarbonate within just a few years, now challenged by other polymers and solutions.

In general all plastics applications in the industrialized countries are to develop in the emerging economies, as a multiple in tonnage, by-passing all the intermediate steps of traditional materials, for the immediate choice of the latest all plastic solutions. New plastics design and innovations are keys to this development.

In 2005, a parallel thinking with one hundred years ago is tempting, as all the innovations that were to mark the 20th century were then budding, automobiles, electricity, telephones, and soon aircraft. Today, nothing yet has been seen of the century, as it was in 1905.

New breakthroughs in energy sources, information technology, life sciences, are partly visible in their scope and future development, topped by globalization and economic gaps rapidly being reduced.

Forecasts in the plastics industry must increasingly rely on end-uses and applications analysis, and the countless specific innovations and designs that make the plastics industry one of the liveliest. The mere extrapolation of past trends often is too conservative an approach.

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