BPF Launches 80th Anniversary Celebrations

At a special media briefing held at The Athenaeum Club, London, on February 20th, the British Plastics Federation (BPF) unveiled the major elements of its 80th Anniversary celebrations.
 
A BPF team headed by President Philip Watkins revealed that a major Conference scheduled for June 13th and to be held at the Midland Hotel in Manchester will be the centre-piece of the year's programme. With a long -term strategic thrust, 'Plastics United' will feature CBI Director General , John Cridland , Barclays Bank Industry Director, Mike Rigby, CMAI's Mike Smith and Energy expert John Hall in an impressive line - up of industry thinkers. Running alongside the Conference will be an Exhibition area for the staging of 'Industry Clinics' on key topics such as Recycling, Health and Safety and Skills. The event will be exclusively for BPF members and is designed to promote cross fertilisation between the diverse member Groups of the organisation.
 
The Year will also feature a Gala Annual Dinner to be held at The Royal Lancaster Hotel on Friday, October 11th. The Dinner will have a cinematic theme and be exclusively open to representatives of BPF member firms, their partners and guests.
 
The BPF will finish the year with the publication of the second edition of its historic 'Timeline' which charts the key innovations in plastics and the UK's role in them. The first edition was published for the 75th Anniversary celebration in 2008 and has been a great success with educationists. It is the BPF's intention to bring this up to date, to indicate future lines of development for plastics and to make it available in poster format for mailing to schools.
 
This comes on top of a full programme of bed-rock activity. 2013 will also see the BPF organise seven seminars on Finance, Health and Safety, Recycling, PVC, Packaging, Automotive and
Medical applications. It will also be leading the UK plastics industry's export effort at the major 'Kunststoffe' exhibition in Dusseldorf between 16th - 23rd  October. The BPF will feature 40 UK companies on two stands and will be taking a Hotel Boat to provide a congenial meeting point for its exhibitors and their customers.
 
BPF President, Philip Watkins, concluded by stating that the BPF's Discussion Document, 'The UK Plastics Industry: A Strategic Manufacturing Sector', which materialised his Presidential theme, would be elaborated further in a second edition to be published in mid- 2013. He anticipated that this would give some prominence to the industry's need to attract and develop skilled employees, its need for greater government support for overseas business development and its requirement of stable supplies of essential raw materials and energy.
 
ENDS
 
For further information please contact Philip Law on 0207 457 5000 or on [email protected]

The British Plastics Federation (BPF) is the UK trade association for the plastics industry – representing the whole supply chain including polymer producers, distributors, additives suppliers, machinery manufacturers, processors and recyclers.