The scheme, officially launched in September, allows rigid plastic items, such as buckets, garden furniture and children's toys to be recycled.

BBC: Longue Hougue recycling site

Attendees in Shanghai included a production executive at Nike's close-by Suzhou Sports subsidiary, which makes the rigid plastic support of its shoe's sole using Huntsman's diphenylmethane diisocyanate, or MDI.

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Attendees in Shanghai included a production executive at Nike (nyse: NKE - news - people )'s close-by Suzhou Sports subsidiary, which makes the rigid plastic support of its shoe's sole using Huntsman's diphenylmethane diisocyanate, or MDI.

FORBES: The Right Chemistry

Amazon's first Kindle e-reader used a plastic non-rigid screen - known as an optical frontplane - to display its images.

BBC: Bend me, shape me: Flexible phones 'out by 2013'

Dr Karp's patch mimics this action using minute needles made of plastic with tips that are rigid when dry but swell once they have pierced wet tissue.

BBC: 'Bed-of-needles' super-grip plaster for surgical wounds

In addition, the OLEDs can be fabricated onto a flexible plastic substrate rather than a rigid glass layer, making it easier to manufacture them into a curved screen.

BBC: LG to start selling curved OLED TVs in South Korea

Being made of silicon, the transistors in the drive circuitry tend to be rigid, fragile and to operate at temperatures high enough to melt the plastic display.

ECONOMIST: SEMICONDUCTORS: Move over, silicon | The