SPI Bioplastics Council Announces Approval of First Associate Member

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October 26, 2011

Contact:

Barry Eisenberg
202-974-5210

beisenberg@plasticsindustry.org

UL, the Global Safety Science Company, Takes Advantage of Council’s Expanded Membership Structure

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Bioplastics Council, a special interest group of SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association, announced today that it has approved UL (Underwriters Laboratories Inc.), a global leader in safety science headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois, as a new member.

“The SPI Bioplastics Council is excited to have its first associate member join the organization and is pleased to see its membership ranks continue to grow,” said Melissa Hockstad, SPI’s vice president, science, technology and regulatory affairs. “UL’s participation invigorates the Council’s diversity and adds to its mission to develop and promote bioplastics as an integral part of the plastics industry.”

“UL is delighted to expand its engagement with SPI by joining the Bioplastics Council,” said Manish Bhatnagar, UL’s vice president and general manager, global chemicals industry. “We expect our safety mission and long-standing expertise in plastics will help address the growing needs of this new emerging technology and make bioplastics as widely accepted as petro-based plastics”

UL is a global safety science company with more than 100 years of proven history. Employing more than 7,000 professionals in more than 100 countries, UL is evolving the future of safety with five distinct business units – Product Safety, Environment, Life & Health, Verification and University – to meet the expanding needs of customers and the global public.  UL evaluates more than 19,000 types of products, components, materials and systems annually. For more information, go tohttp://www.ul.com.

The SPI Bioplastics Council seeks to provide a forum for resin and additive suppliers, as well as processors, equipment suppliers and distributors, to promote the development of bioplastics. UL now joins the following Corporate members of the group: Arkema, BASF Corporation, Cereplast Inc., DuPont, Ecospan, Jamplast, Merquinsa, NatureWorks LLC, Nypro Inc., PolyOne Corporation, RTP Company, Teknor Apex and Telles (a Metabolix/ADM Joint Venture).

In January the Bioplastics Council announced an expansion of its membership structure to provide a forum for a wider range of bioplastics-related companies and organizations. Two new membership categories -- Associate Membership and Professional/Trade Association Membership – were added. Associate Membership is open to brand owners, retailers of bioplastics products, providers of industrial services, publishers, research consulting partnerships, and others who devote a significant part of their efforts to the bioplastics industry in the NAFTA region. The Professional and Trade Association Membership is open to individuals and trade associations engaged in activities directly related to the development or utilization of bioplastics and who are not eligible for the other membership categories

Learn more about the group athttp://www.bioplasticscouncil.org. Membership and other inquiries should be addressed to SPI Vice President, Science, Technology and Regulatory Affairs, Melissa Hockstad atmhockstad@plasticsindustry.orgor 202-974-5258.

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The NPE2009 international plastics exposition will take place June 22-26, 2009 at Chicago's McCormick Place. The event is produced by the Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. (SPI). Co-located with NPE2009 will be the Society of Plastics Engineers' ANTEC^TM2009, the world's largest plastics technical conference, and Gardner Publications' MoldMaking Expo^TM2009 show and conference. Visitwww.npe.org.

Founded in 1937, SPI is the plastics industry trade association representing the third largest manufacturing industry in the United States. SPI's member companies represent the entire plastics industry supply chain, including processors, machinery and equipment manufacturers and raw materials suppliers. The U.S. plastics industry employs 1.1 million workers and provides nearly $379 billion in annual shipments.

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