Polystyrene toughened with polybutadiene rubber. Sheet thermoforming, appliance liners, dairy packaging.
European HIPS capacity is around 600 kt/year. INEOS Styrolution, Trinseo, Versalis, and Synthos produce HIPS alongside their GPPS lines, often via in-line rubber compounding. Major end uses are white-goods interiors (refrigerator liners), yogurt and dairy lids, electronics housings, packaging trays, and point-of-purchase displays.
HIPS holds defensible niches against PP through its rigidity, dimensional stability, and high-quality printability. White-goods OEMs (Whirlpool, Electrolux, BSH) are sticky customers — qualification and tooling investment makes resin substitution costly.
HIPS is GPPS plus a butadiene-rubber compounding cost. Pricing tracks the Styrene Monomer Contract Price plus a butadiene contract premium. The HIPS-to-GPPS spread (typically €100–200/t) widens when butadiene tightens — for example during European cracker turnarounds that reduce C4 availability.
Watch ICIS HIPS weekly alongside butadiene contract data. Asian HIPS imports (LG Chem, Chi Mei) episodically pressure European pricing during periods of soft regional demand.
HIPS (high-impact polystyrene) is polystyrene toughened with polybutadiene rubber dispersed at 5–10% loading. The rubber phase absorbs impact energy that would shatter unmodified polystyrene (GPPS), giving HIPS the impact resistance needed for thermoformed containers, refrigerator inner liners, and electronics housings. HIPS is opaque (the rubber phase scatters light) and accepts pigments and high-quality printing — that's why it dominates yogurt and dessert pots in European supermarkets.
Both are styrenic plastics with rubber-modified toughness, but ABS is a terpolymer (acrylonitrile + butadiene + styrene) while HIPS is just polystyrene + butadiene. ABS is harder, more chemically resistant, and gives a higher-quality surface finish — preferred for premium electronics housings, automotive interior trim, and Lego bricks. HIPS is cheaper and easier to thermoform — preferred for high-volume packaging (yogurt pots) and large white-goods inner liners. ABS handles higher service temperatures (continuous to 80 °C vs HIPS at 70 °C).
HIPS shares polystyrene's recyclability profile — technically yes, but practical recycling rates are low across most of Europe because PS contaminates PET and PP recycling streams at MRFs. White-goods OEMs (BSH, Electrolux) recover refrigerator inner liners through dedicated end-of-life schemes for closed-loop recycling. Yogurt-pot HIPS recycling is improving in the Netherlands and Germany but is far behind PET and HDPE collection rates.
Three big applications: refrigerator and freezer inner liners (where its thermoformability and food-contact compliance combine), yogurt and dessert pots (high-speed thermoforming with print compatibility), and electronics housings — particularly older TVs, monitors, and appliance front panels. White-goods makers value HIPS for its dimensional stability over thousands of door-open cycles. Some OEMs are switching toward PP for sustainability reasons, but HIPS retains a strong technical position.