The British Plastic Federation members supplying EPS to industries ranging from construction and civil engineering to packaging and insulation, have adopted ‘airpop – engineered air’ as the new Europe-wide name for EPS. This change now replaces many names previously used across Europe including Styropor, PSE, Piepschuim and Polyfoam bringing a common European name for the material.

Explaining the move, David Emes, Chairman of the BPF EPS group said, “Airpop has been chosen because the name immediately brings to mind what the material is made of – air. In fact 98 % air, to be precise. With just a tiny fraction made of polystyrene expanded to fifty times its own volume. This remarkable material is used as a lightweight, high-impact, highly-efficient insulating material in construction and civil engineering as well as in products protecting everything that needs to be protected – our children’s heads, televisions, computers, fresh fish and thousands of other items used in our daily lives.”

The airpop® campaign has been initiated by EUMEPS and their respective national EPS trade associations as well as by European EPS raw material producers. The creative concept was developed by the communications agency Ogilvy & Mather in Frankfurt, Germany.

airpop® represents an industry of approximately 200 mainly small and medium sized converters in Europe who process about 300,000 tonnes of raw material into airpop® sheet, blocks, parts and products. Main customers are construction, civil engineering, HVAC, computers and electronics, household goods producers and the food industry. Further information about the new name is available at www.airpop.com or you can view the launch video at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SsjTsRs9N8

The British Plastics Federation is the UK’s leading trade authority in plastics design, technical advancement and manufacture. Members of the EPS Group include: processors and converters of airpop®; raw material suppliers; suppliers of airpop® processing, manufacturing and auxiliary equipment and recyclers of airpop®.