Borealis, a provider of solutions in the fields of polyolefins, base chemicals and fertilizers, announces a net profit of €61 million compared to €140 million in the same quarter in 2012.

The decrease in net profit was a result of lower sales volumes and profits in its joint venture, Borouge, due to a planned turnaround for routine maintenance, as well as soft market conditions for the European Polyolefins business.

Germany-based chemicals company BASF has extended its compostable and partially bio-based Ecovio range of plastics with new grades suited to thermoforming and injection moulding.

BASF’s Ecovio T2308 grade exhibits similar mechanical properties to those of amorphous PET, and will now be available for the production of thermoformed trays and cups.

Lanxess’s Inorganic Pigments business unit is to build a new high-tech facility for premium iron oxide red pigments at the Ningbo Chemical Park, in eastern China’s Zhegiang province. The €55 million plant will create 150 new jobs and will have an initial capacity of 25,000 tonnes/year. Construction will begin in Q2 for start-up in Q1 2015.

Soft drinks giant Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) is monitoring 10 UK households for the next six months in order to build up a picture of the nation’s domestic recycling habits.

The ‘Recycle for the Future’ study, conducted with Exeter University, will try to find out why UK at-home recycling rates are below the European average, despite consumers claiming they wanted to recycle.