K 2019 gives a Clear Signal for Responsible Handling of Plastics

K, the leading global trade fair for the plastics and rubber industry, has drawn to a close in Düsseldorf after eight days on Wednesday (23 October 2019). The 3,330 exhibitors from 63 nations proved impressively: plastics continue to be an innovative, indispensable, future-oriented material. But they also unanimously underscored the necessity of having operational circular economies along the complete material chain and to this end already presented concrete solutions. Companies struck a nerve with people with this focus because the approximately 225,000 visitors from 165 countries took great interest especially in recycling systems, sustainable raw materials, resource-saving processes. Furthermore, K 2019 was characterised by a high propensity to invest as before. The intention among the international trade audience to get perfectly geared up for the future with the latest technologies was clearly perceivable. 

“K 2019 came at precisely the right point in time. Its enormous importance for the sector is underpinned by its high acceptance levels all over the world. There is no other place the industry is represented so internationally and completely as here in Düsseldorf every three years,” says Werner Matthias Dornscheidt, President & CEO of Messe Düsseldorf, and explains: “Especially in times of great challenges, a platform like the K is indispensable. It provides guidance and perspectives, sets sustainable economic impulses, shows forward-looking trends and concrete approaches. The industry and its professional associations enjoyed the unique opportunity here to present sector-specific solutions and debate questions of socio-political relevance on a global scale. And they have capitalised on this opportunity outstandingly well.”

Ulrich Reifenhäuser, Chairman of the Exhibitor Advisory Board at K 2019, was absolutely delighted at K 2019 results: “The plastics and rubber industry succeeded in proving once again that plastics are not only very valuable materials with outstanding properties but also that this industry assumes responsibility along the entire value chain. The buzzwords at K 2019 “Reflect. Re-Think. Think Laterally. Think Afresh.” were mirrored 1:1 by exhibitors’ stands. Never before has the industry addressed an issue so unanimously and worked on solutions so consistently as is the case now in the fields of environmental compatibility, saving resources and avoiding waste. There is a spirit of new departures prevailing in the industry and current dynamics are overwhelming.”

And the positive mood prevailing at K 2019 was also echoed by concrete demand at exhibition stands: “It became clear that global demand for innovative machinery and raw materials is particularly high right now, despite the current tensions in world trade or the business climate in some consumer sectors. This year’s K has by far exceeded our expectations and was able to generate key impetus for sustainable governance and new business models,” said Reifenhäuser.
The nations especially well represented on the part of visitors after Germany were Italy, the Netherlands, India, Turkey and China, followed by the USA.

Furthermore, a marked increase in the number of trade visitors from the Russian Federation, Japan and Brazil could be registered. The number of executives among K visitors rose slightly yet again: to the tune of 68% came from top or middle management. With over 90 percent, visitor satisfaction was again at a top level. While for German trade visitors increased efficiency ranked first as the currently most important issue, the expansion of product and service portfolios was in the foreground for European and non-European trade fair guests.

Once again, K was able to score points as a premiere platform where many trend-setting products and applications were presented to the world public for the first time. The innovations were not only admired, but also many concrete negotiations were conducted and contracts signed.  “We found the propensity to invest extremely high and across all nations. In particular, business with new customers was very positive this year. We are also confident about very strong follow-up business,” says Reifenhäuser. For the guests from throughout the world investment in expansion ranked particularly high on the list, especially in extruders and extrusion lines. The survey among visitors also showed that the interest in machinery and equipment for plastics reclamation and recycling is noticeably higher abroad than in Germany.

Flexible materials – rubbers and thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) – also proved a fixture at K again. Although the elastomer segment has traditionally been smaller than the plastics range at K, there was a surprisingly high number of companies presenting elastomer-specific products and services – be it raw materials, additives and compounds or special machines and equipment for reclamation and converting.

The extensive supporting programme at K 2019 boasting keynotes and high-calibre discussions such as on renewable energies, material efficiency or zero-waste production met with avid interest among the international audience, especially the Special Show K 2019 “Plastics shape the Future”. This year the innovative power of the material and the industry in terms of resource-saving processes, digitalisation, functionality, renewable energies, circularity and sustainability were centrestage. And such critical themes as marine litter, the throw-away mentality associated with plastic packaging and the use of finite resources for their production were not ignored either. Proving one of the highlights was a humanoid robot that was built during K 2019 by young researchers from FabLab Lübeck e.V. serving as an example to show where developments are headed in future when additive manufacturing and robotics are combined with cutting-edge materials such as plastics.

At the Science Campus both exhibitors and visitors to K 2019 were given a condensed overview of scientific activities and results in the plastics and rubber sector. Numerous universities, institutes and funding agencies provided opportunities for direct dialogue.

The next K Düsseldorf will be held from 19 to 26 October 2022.

Exhibitor Testimonials for K 2019

„Milliken’s booth was a major hit at K 2019, with thousands of visitors from across the globe drawn to our circular economy solutions. Our team demonstrated the various ways in which our advanced plastics additives and colorants are helping to make the reuse and recycling of plastics possible. A particular highlight was our joint press conference with PureCycle Technologies, where our partnership on closed-loop recycling attracted strong international media attention. We are already looking forward to K 2022.
Veerle De Wolf, Marketing Communication Manager EMEA, Milliken

“We are very satisfied with the outcome of the trade fair. We had surprisingly many visitors from a great number of countries. Alongside Germany, Austria, Turkey, India, Poland, Italy, France and Brazil were particularly well represented. At the Wittmann Battenfeld stand in Hall 15 our process engineering and HiQ technologies as well as our developments in digitalisation met with particular interest. Also attracting special attention was our application in Circular Economy with Zeroplast where we demonstrate the possibility to injection mould all types of materials, even completely bio-based materials. At the WITTMANN stand in Hall 10 the new robotics developments went down especially well, above all the new WX138, and the WLAN Teachbox. We also observed increased interest in granulators. We succeeded in closing a number of concrete deals, which is not unusual especially for the K fair, and therefore also expect follow-up orders.                 
Michael Wittmann, Wittmann Group General Manager

“ARLANXEO was highly satisfied overall with both the visitor and customer response at K 2019. The focal theme of ARLANXEO’s trade fair appearance were products and developments for the mobility of the future with a focus on new rubber solutions for tyres, energy storage as well as a wide variety of other automotive applications. These themes meet with definite interest since such trends as electrification or autonomous driving will change transport fundamentally in the next decade and we are called upon to jointly come up with answers for more sustainable, comfortable and safe mobility in the future.”                                 Stefan Rittmann, Executive Vice President Strategy & Business Development as well as Managing Director of ARLANXEO Deutschland GmbH

“To us K in Düsseldorf is one of the world’s most important trade fairs for all things plastics. Under the heading ‘Quality Works – Energizing the Future’ we have presented high-quality solutions for the plastics and rubber industry at our very busy trade fair stand. On approximately 700 square metres the themes New Mobility, Urbanisation and Digitalisation were centrestage here. K makes an important contribution to the dialogue with our customers and interested visitors. Not only our exhibits but also our expert lectures at the stand were very popular and in high demand. Here AI (Artificial Intelligence) was of particular interest for shortening developing times. Our verdict: K 2019 has proved a resounding success for LANXESS once again.”
Udo Erbstößer, Project Manager for K 2019 at LANXESS

“K2019 has set an exclamation mark: the sector is in motion! The leading global trade fair with its highly international visitor profile again provided BASF with a perfect platform. From automotive through packaging to consumer goods – we registered a broad interest across all application industries. Proving particular attractions for visitors and experts alike were our cooperation projects with customers such as our concept motorhome VisionVenture, and digitalisation and sustainability projects such as ChemCycling.” Dr. Guiscard Glück, Vice President Product Development & Creation Center, BASF Performance Materials
“Our trade fair stand was extremely well attended from day one. Our customers came from Peru to Japan, from the USA to Indonesia and our currently most important markets China and India were very well represented with numerous visitors. We were especially delighted to note that our guests at the stand were interested not only in the omnipresent recycling theme but also showed avid interest in our other sustainability themes such as energy and CO2-savings or the efficient use of raw materials.”
Karlheinz Weinmann, Head of Corporate Communications at Brückner Maschinenbau

“Our sector-specific focus has met with a very positive response among our customers. We have demonstrated our core packaging expertise very well by means of two interesting exhibits. In the medical technology segment we showcased an interesting pipette exhibit. And our automotive segment has also clearly positioned itself with two exhibits: in the LSR field with our partnership with Nexus and with our attractive IMD part, which we demonstrated with our new Intelect 500. Usually, our expectations about concluding business deals at K is of rather secondary importance. But things were very different at this K edition since the entire industry is waiting for a signal about how the economic situation will develop further. To our great surprise, the business contracted here this time even exceeded last K’s results three years ago. This shows both the success of our strategy and the growing willingness to invest at present. Post-show business is set to develop even more positively than business during the trade fair itself. Our project pipeline has markedly improved with K 2019.”
Gerd Liebig, CEO, Sumitomo Demag Plastics Machinery GmbH

“K always occupies a special place in our strategic exhibition considerations: our long preparatory work has really produced outstanding results. And the mood was clearly better than could have been expected given the economic climate. On some days we were almost overrun. The combination of digitalisation themes with the arburgXworld and the sustainability efforts we are undertaking with our arburgGREENworld works ever so well.”
Dr. Christoph Schumacher, Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications, Arburg GmbH + Co KG

“This time around K became the leading trade fair for the circular economy and plastics recycling. The trade audience took an avid interest in our technological innovations for the highest possible process and regranulate qualities. This already became clear on the first few trade fairs days when looking at the crowds of visitors at EREMA’s exhibition stands and the sales deals concluded. We also received plenty of positive feedback for our Circonomic Centre on the outdoor premises. In cooperation with partners from the entire plastics value chain we have managed to provide strong impulses here with a view to rolling out new circularity projects even faster in future.”
Manfred Hackl, CEO EREMA Group

“This year’s K has fulfilled all of our expectations. We are very happy with the quality of conversations we had. On top of that, we sensed a marked demand in Europe, Asia and the USA for the themes we cover and the products we offer including recycling, Industry 4.0 and, of course, our new and further developments in twin-screw extruders, dosing systems and bulk materials handling. These developments all contribute to boosting the efficiency of our customers’ manufacturing processes.”
Bettina König, Director Global Marketing Communications, Coperion

“The K trade fair has convincingly demonstrated that sustainability has now also reached the top of the agenda in the plastics industry. There is more to this than just recycling – efficient and sustainable use of resources is also in great demand. Our research study on a new bio-polymer raw material based on apple pomace met with particular interest as it is suitable for versatile applications and can be used for making barrier plastics.”
Dr. Stefan Hanstein, Department Biogenic Systems, Fraunhofer IWKS

K 2019 has by far exceeded our ambitious expectations, already in the first days, the visitor interest was enormous. Five days after the start of the show, the number of customer visits had already exceeded the number we had at the end of the show in 2016. There were many positive, technical discussions with a strong focus on process optimization, quality and efficiency increase as well as on sustainability – all topics, which are realized by the use of our measuring and testing systems. Special attention was paid to our new measuring system, which allows for the first time for a 100 % measurement of the pipe directly after and through the pipe head. The percentage of international visitors was quite high, especially from China and India. Overall, we draw a very positive result about our participation in the show, which has demonstrated that there are many strong investment plans. We have experienced the K as a very forward, future-oriented show.”
Harry Prunk, Vorstand SIKORA AG

“We are extremely satisfied with K2019. We have met a great number of existing and potential new partners – and this from all over the world and the most varied application areas such as automotive or additive manufacturing. Our innovations such as the latest generation of polyamide elastomers PEBA and the conductive and low extractable fuel lines aroused great interest. There was also a substantially stronger interest taken in our bio-based VESTAMID Terra than 3 years ago. We have been able to launch concrete projects for various markets.”
Dr. Ralf Duessel, Senior Vice President & General Manager High Performance Polymers, Evonik

“At the joint Fraunhofer pavilion 11 institutes showcased innovative, sustainable and efficient solutions and developments for converting plastics. A great number of our visitors – especially from Germany, Italy, China and India – voiced a demand for recycling, bio-based plastics, resource efficiency and circular economy, and for the up-cycling of polyethylentherephthalate (LBF). This means that the trade fair and our exhibits responded very well to the trends also of relevance in society.” Prof. Dr. Christian Oehr, Deputy Head of the Institute, Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB

“Saving resources through sustainable production, recycling and quick colour changes were our central themes at the K trade fair and will be beyond. We are pleased with the positive response across the board and the avid interest taken in our sustainable demo bottle of foamed PCR and bio-based polyethylene, to name bit two. With this project we were able to prove credibly that we are not only paying lip services when it comes to sustainability.”                                              Christian Kirchbaumer Head of Marketing Communications, Kautex Group

“The K experienced a great crowd of visitors, which was not a matter of course this year. Our expectations were exceeded, although it can be seen that the proportion of visitors from the automotive industry is lower than three years ago. It is certainly too early to draw a conclusion before evaluating the visit reports. What we can certainly say, however, is that interest in innovative processing technologies that lead to greater efficiency, productivity and sustainability remains high. The focus continues to be on digitisation. It is an important trailblazer for the recycling industry, as K 2019 made clear.”
Dr. Stefan Engleder, CEO, ENGEL Group