Japan: Research by the Japan Sustainable Building Consortium suggests that under floor insulation could reduce negative health effects such as high blood pressure. The study found that when the temperatures near the floor of a person's home were lower, the proportion of people seeing a doctor regularly for conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes increased, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and the Mainichi newspaper.

The study looked at 4131 people in 2307 homes identified for insulation retrofitting. The average age of the participants was about 57 years with an even gender split. Comparisons were drawn between residents' health before and after insulation upgrades were completed. The researchers found that in homes where the temperature near the floor was below 15°C, the people were on average 1.51 times more likely to have high blood pressure and 1.64 times more likely to have diabetes. The study also noted adverse health effects when bedrooms and living rooms were unevenly heated.

Belgium: Recticel is coordinating the four-year PUReSmart project that was launched on 1 January 2019. The project will look at ways of recycling polyurethane (PU) and turning it into a circular material. It is supported by Euro6m in funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme.

PUReSmart plans to recover over 90% of end-of-life PU with the goal of converting it into inputs for new and known products. The project consortium will develop sorting technologies to separate a diverse range of PU materials into dedicated feedstocks. These feedstocks will be broken down into their basic components as inputs for existing PU products, and as raw materials for a newly designed polymer that merges the durability of thermosets with the circularity of thermoplastics.

The PUReSmart consortium is an end-to-end collaboration spanning the entire polyurethane reprocessing value chain, and comprises both industrial players and dedicated research partners. As well as Recticel the other partners on the project include Covestro Deutschland, BT-Wolfgang Binder, WeylChem InnoTec, Ecoinnovazione, Ghent University, KU Leuven, Universidad De Castilla – La Mancha and Ayming.

UK: Superglass has tested a glass wool tea cosy against a traditional woollen version in a promotional video broadcast live on social media. In the experiment the tea cosy, made of 84% recycled glass wool insulation, kept a teapot hotter over a 90-minute period than an identical teapot with a woollen one. The teapots were filled with identical volumes of water and were measured with identical thermometers. By the end of the 90-minute experiment, the Superglass pot registered 67.7°C and the traditional cosy was down to 55.0°C.

“Of course, the tea cosy video is a bit of fun, but it highlights just how much of a difference good insulation can make,” said Bob Dalrymple, Head of Marketing at Superglass. He added that the company does not intend on manufacture tea cosies for sale.

Cambodia: Germany’s BASF has started its own local subsidiary to sell its own products directly. It had been working through local distribution partners since 2014, according to the Phnom Penh Post newspaper. The company will market its performance materials products including polyurethane insulation. Other products it will bring to market include monomers and intermediates, nutrition and health and agricultural offerings.