June 23, 2011
CPIA Announces 2011 Award Winners
Toronto, ON, June 23, 2011 – The Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA) today announced the winners of the 2011 Plastics Industry Awards. CPIA’s awards recognize outstanding individuals and businesses for their commitment and dedication to the growth and sustainability of the Canadian plastics industry.
In addition to the prestigious award for Leader of Year, Plastics Innovation and Plastics Stewardship, this year the CPIA introduced a new Recycled Plastics Product Award.
“This new award recognizes companies that are stepping up to take advantage of the post-use plastics materials that are being recovered in Canada and using those materials to meet the growing consumer demand for recycled plastic products. We are delighted to be able to celebrate the contributions of the winners in all of the award categories.” said Greg Wilkinson, President and CEO of CPIA.
Since 1966 the Leader of the Year Award has been given to individuals that are widely recognized as having made important contributions to the Canadian Plastics Industry and continually use their knowledge and influence to improve the competitive, innovative and environmental performance of this industry. This year the Leader of the Year Award recipient is Mark Badger, CEO of Switchable Solutions, a Clean Tech company with technology enabling efficient and environmentally friendly plastic recycling and processing of oil sands. He is past President and CEO of CPIA.
The Plastics Innovation Award is for those companies that have contributed to the expansion of the Canadian plastics industry, through advancement of plastic technology. This year’s Plastics Innovator Award winner is IPEX Inc. with fifteen manufacturing plants across Canada. IPEX is the designer and manufacturer of Bionax, one of the world’s most diverse lines of integrated thermoplastic piping systems. Bionax has almost double the strength of conventional PVC and three times the impact absorption capability. Using a revolutionary new orientation process, this pipe has enhanced toughness and flexibility which makes it perfect for rebuilding Canada’s underground potable water infrastructure.
The Plastics Stewardship Award recognizes companies that have contributed to the enhancement of the Canadian plastic industry’s stewardship and sustainability. Contributions may be in the areas of product development, reprocessing, energy recovery from waste, conservation and responsible use of resources.
The Plastics Stewardship Award winner this year is Ice River Springs, a bottled water company headquartered in Feversham, Ontario. Ice River Springs is the first bottled water company in North America to self-manufacture its own resin and produce plastic water bottles made of 100% recycled plastic. Ice River Springs goal is to eliminate dependency upon foreign virgin PET resin by self-manufacturing recycled resin from baled post-consumer plastic purchased from Municipal Recycling Centres, thereby significantly reducing their carbon footprint. Their trucks deliver spring water in 100% recycled PET to the store, but then return to their plant with plastic to be recycled, closing the loop.
The new Recycled Plastic Products Award recognizes companies whose products or packaging is produced in Canada and contains at least 20% post-use plastics. This award is intended to raise awareness about innovative uses of millions of pounds of plastics collected for recycling. Three companies are receiving Recycled Plastic Products Awards this year:
§ Gracious Living Corporation for their blue boxes developed with Stewardship Ontario’s endorsement. Located in Woodbridge, Ontario, Gracious Living Corporation had been working with this innovative recycling technology and using it in the manufacturing of household storage products found at retailers across North America. It only seemed fitting that the next step was introduce a blue box manufactured using 70% post-consumer material that comes from Ontario’s blue box collection. The success of both programs is helping to divert hundreds of trucks of curbside material from landfills. Gracious Living Corporation is a leader in implementing innovative environmental programs that perfect the ‘closed-loop’ system.
§ Canadian Tire Corporation for their Blue Planet Storage Solutions. Canadian Tire partnered with Gracious Living Corporation to launch a national eco program. Products for storage solutions are offered under Canadian Tire’s exclusive Blue Planet brand. The product line includes a family laundry basket, storage and cleaning product caddy, stackable bins, a stackable 3-drawer tower and a storage container with wheels. The products are made from at least 75% recycled content and are manufactured in Canada. The post consumer content is sourced from the household blue box collection system.
§ Interplast Packaging Inc. for their egg packaging that contains a minimum of 25% post-consumer recycled material and a minimum 25% post industrial sourced material. Interplast Packaging has been working at increasing the recycled content of its packaging to levels greater than 75%. Located just outside of Montreal, Interplast Packaging has been designing and manufacturing see-through egg cartons since 1996. All Interplast egg cartons contain post-consumer recycled PET – recycled from pop bottle and the egg cartons are recyclable where services are available.
CPIA would like to congratulate all the award winners and commend them for their contributions to the plastics industry.
The awards were presented at CPIA's Annual General Meeting and Awards Celebration on June 23, 2011 at the Toronto Congress Centre.
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The Canadian Plastics Industry Association is the national voice of Canada’s plastics industry, representing the interests of processors, material suppliers, equipment manufacturers and brand owners across the country.
For More Information:
Darlene Gray
Canadian Plastics Industry Association
905.678.7748 ext. 239