Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

Slovenia: A fire broke out at Fragmat’s insulation plant at Podskrajnik near Cerknica on 13 June 2019. Around 450 fire fighters were involved in controlling the blaze, according to the Slovenian Press Agency. The unit manufactures polystyrene insulation.

US: Johns Manville (JM) plans to build a new fibreglass insulation production line at its McPherson plant in Kansas. The new line will produce its Climate Pro blowing wool product. JM will begin construction on the expansion project later in 2019 pending various governmental approvals. It anticipates the completion in early 2021. When complete, JM will employ more than 330 people in McPherson.

US: Celotex has been named in a lawsuit filed in Philadelphia on behalf of victims and families of the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London, UK that killed 72 people. Attorneys for the plaintiffs said they represent the estates of 69 of the 72 people who perished in the residential high-rise fire, and 177 survivors who suffered life-altering injuries, according to Reuters. The lawsuit demands a jury trial but has not specified the amount of compensation it is seeking. Whirlpool and Arconic have also been named in the document.

US: Owens Corning plans to expand its RainBarrier continuous insulation product range. The new products in the portfolio will offer better compressive strength. They will be available in the second half of 2019. The building materials producer made the announcement at the AIA Conference on Architecture.

China: A study by researchers from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and Britain's University of Bristol says that the provinces of Shandong and Hebei are the source of a rise in trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11) emissions. It attributed about 40% to 60%of in the rise in CFC-11 since 2013 to this region, according to Reuters. After studying atmospheric data from South Korea and Japan they estimated that CFC-11 emissions from eastern China during the 2014 - 2017 period were around 7000t/hr higher than 2008 - 2012.

Previously in mid-2018 an investigation by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) speculated that the widespread use of CFC-11 by Chinese rigid polyurethane (PU) foam producers might be the source of the reported rise of emissions.

China launched an inspection campaign into 3000 foam manufacturers in 2018 and promised to punish any violations of the Montreal Protocol treaty. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment said in March 2019 that it had shut down two manufacturing areas that produced CFC-11. It added that its investigation into PU foam makers had not found any large-scale usage so far but that producers may be getting better at hiding their operations. It also noted that there was ‘uncertainty’ in published research and called for better detection mechanisms.