Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) announced the winners of the first GPCA Plastics Innovation Awards 2011, at a ceremony held in Festival City Dubai.

The GPCA instituted the award this year to encourage innovation in the plastics industry and honour companies which have achieved excellence in this field along with talented individuals.

Green Vision from Saudi Arabia won the award in the Plastic Products category for their innovative and eco-friendly turf system that has been developed locally to replace real grass in regions affected by droughts.

Zamil Plastics, also from the kingdom, won the award in the Processing and Conversion category, for converting plastic parts to metal parts.

Taghleef Industries from Dubai won the award in the Plastics and Environment category, for its Bopla sustainable packaging film.

Dr Mohammed Naser S. Alghamdi and Krishna Prasad Rajan, both from Yanbu Industrial College, Saudi Arabia, won the award in the Talents in Plastics category along with $5,000 in prize money for their development of environment friendly, completely bio-degradable bio composites materials based on date-palm fibre.

“Plastic is a fascinating and versatile product that can take any shape or texture. The only limit is our capacity to innovate. We would like to encourage and tap into our innovative resources for the benefit of the people. We believe the GPCA Plastics Innovation Awards is the right step to motivate further innovation,” stated Dr Moayyed I. Al Qurtas, chairman of the GPCA Plastics Committee.-TradeArabia News Service