Pennsylvania State Rep Frank Dermody (left) today toured the Harwick, PA manufacturing facility of Watson Standard with the company’s Wes Horton (center) and Jeff Matty.

Top managers gave Rep. Dermody an organized tour of the plant’s manufacturing area, helping him learn about the physical production processes, as well as the overall business of the company. Plant visits such as this are organized regularly with the support of the Government and Industry Affairs specialists at SPI in order to familiarize legislators with actual operations of companies in America’s diverse plastics business, the third largest sector of American manufacturing.

Among those meeting with Rep. Dermody were Jim Lore, President of Watson Standard, Jeff Matty, VP of regulatory affairs, and Wes Horton,  director of manufacturing. Watson Standard, which was founded in 1902 is a privately held specialty chemical coating and adhesives supplier with its headquarters in Pittsburgh, about 10 miles southwest of the Harwick manufacturing facility.

Certified to the ISO 9001:2008 quality standard, WS focuses on application-based, customer-specific conventional and energy-curable coatings and adhesives for a broad range of applications encompassing rigid, flexible, food, beverage, pharmaceutical, confectionery, and general industrial packaging. Besides its American home market, the company has a global sales and distribution that includes Central and South America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region.

The communication that takes place both during and after plant visits such as Rep. Dermody’s today is invaluable to both sides. Legislators are tasked with creating laws and regulations that directly impact all the manufacturing sectors. It therefore is important that they know as much as possible about actual manufacturing operations, and equally important that manufacturers are able to have input into the government actions that will affect their businesses going forward.

Recognizing this, SPI facilitates plant visits for its member companies, many of which have taken advantage of the opportunity. Further, SPI for some time sponsored “fly-ins” that bring leaders of plastics sector businesses to Washington, D.C. for meetings directly with their legislators and staffers.

The next SPI Fly-In is set for July 24, 2013, but this time it’s not just SPI members coming in. Seven other plastics-related associations are joining in, including: American Chemistry Council, American Composites Manufacturers Association, International Association of Plastics Distribution, Plastic Pipe and Fittings Association, Plastic Pipe Institute, Vinyl Institute, and Western Plastics Association. More Fly-In information here.

It’s called The Truth About Plastic Bags, and it lives up to its name with factual, quantitative information on plastic bags relative to litter, source material, recyclability (spoiler alert: 100% recyclable), access to bag recycling, environmental impact (see below), negative impacts of bag bans on retail businesses, and more.

The colorful, multipage infographic is available as a free PDF download that can be easily reprinted and handed to those who mistakenly believe plastic bags make the worst choice when the truth is the exact opposite. Facts are facts.

You can see a sample from The Truth About Plastic Bags below, and you can see it in full and download it here. For more information on plastic bags, visit BagTheBan.com, which is presented by Hilex Poly, a leader in plastic bag recycling and manufacturing.

But you are just as likely to see or hear that the uptick in American manufacturing is a glitch, just part of a reflex-like rebound from the recession of 2008-2009, that there are serious obstacles to a major recovery, and that the U.S. is unlikely to ever recover its prominence as a maker of things.

One of the most frequently mentioned obstacles is a lack of skilled workers in the USA. Several recent studies put the number of jobs going unfilled due to employers not being able to find people with the needed skills at about half a million, and probably more. They are not talking about graduate engineers, though they too are scarce, but shop floor, hands-on machine operators, maintenance specialists, and machinists.

The ManpowerGroup’s 2012 Annual Talent Shortage Survey found 33 percent of U.S. employers have difficulty finding skilled workers, an increase from 24 percent in the 2011 survey. The Survey revealed that the 10 hardest jobs to fill are, in order of difficulty: skilled trades, engineers, IT staff, sales reps, accounting/finance staff, drivers, mechanics, nurses, machinists/machine operators, and teachers.

The so-called skills gap could either stop a manufacturing renaissance or slow it down significantly. The good news is that solutions are developing. For example, the federal government is supporting creation of centers for manufacturing excellence around the country, and plastics manufacturers and others are working with educational institutions such as community colleges to give workers the skills they need.

One solution, however, deserves more attention. “The central answer to the mismatch between jobs and employment is a 21^st-century apprenticeship program,” according to a recent article in the Washington Post. The authors, Stuart E. Eizenstat, chief domestic policy adviser to President Jimmy Carter and undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration, and Robert I. Lerman, an economics professor at American University and a fellow at the Urban Institute, make a strong case for apprenticeships.

There are a number of existing manufacturing apprenticeship programs in operation, but with about half a million jobs open that can’t be filled, more are needed. The article points out that 55 to 70 percent of all young people in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland enter apprenticeships. To be sure, those countries have long traditions of guilds and craftwork and you could say apprenticeships are in their culture. But in Australia apprenticeships have tripled since 1996, and in England they have increased by a factor of 10 since 1990 to more than 500,000 participants last year.

As a plastics industry journalist in Europe, I visited numerous plastics processing facilities, and I saw apprentices at work in many of them, particularly in Germany. Those training programs are as normal and common there as they are rare and unusual in the USA. Top managers of the processing companies told me the apprentice programs are virtually always three-way partnerships among government, education, and the manufacturer — and they always spoke of the program and its results positively. I recall one manager, puzzled by my questions about the apprentice system, stopped for a moment and then told me, in a serious tone, that those youngsters were the future of his company.

My interviews were almost always at small to medium plastics processing companies, almost all plastics molders and moldmakers. The larger companies also have apprentice programs. In every case, the managers emphasized that the learning was absolutely practical, based on the specifics of processing plastics and toolmaking. They stressed how, following a brief startup period, the apprentices did real work that the company needed, not made-up training exercises. The learning provided by the educational institution likewise was driven by what the apprentices would be doing following their training. The keyword for the apprentice training is practical.

Manufacturing accounts for 20 percent of all German jobs, despite a high level of automation. Manufacturing is about 10 percent of the U.S. workforce. Germany as a country is strongly focused on exports and regularly enjoys a trade surplus. By contrast, America’s large trade deficit seems to have become a permanent part of economic reports.

Making apprenticeships an effective component of U.S. manufacturing will require a cultural shift. Eizenstat and Lerman note that government in America spends more than $300 billion on colleges and universities, while its outlays for apprenticeship programs are less than $40 million. Many Americans believe that a college diploma is essential to success, that production facilities are terrible workplaces, and that a career in manufacturing lacks prestige and is not financially rewarding.

As everyone in manufacturing knows, the truth is quite the opposite. The apprentice graduates with a sense of pride and the identity that comes with joining an occupational group. And the financial considerations are very different. Unlike a full-time student, the apprentice earns money while learning and training, does not accumulate what increasingly is a heavy burden of student loan debt, has not been unemployed, and most likely will not be.

Switching from glass (left) bottles to PET plastics bottles, Goya Foods gained many advantages, including substantially reduced environmental impact.

Amcor’s LatinAmerica group designed the hot-fill bottles, including a new shrink-wrap label, and the result is a vibrant, clean package that is at once modern and elegant. Apart from the visual appeal, Amcor’s press release notes other benefits: “The hot fill bottle delivers significant performance and cost advantages including portability, reduced breakage, and light weight, along with sustainability benefits such as recyclability, reduced transportation costs, and a significantly reduced carbon footprint.

During the last 70 or so years that plastics have been replacing glass — and metals, paper, and fabrics — the replacement decision was generally not based on any single plastics advantage. One benefit often was cited as the key factor, but virtually always, it was a combination of benefits that spurred the change, as it is with Goya’s decision on these bottles.

Goya is realizing substantial environmental benefits by changing the  bottles from glass to plastics. Amcor says using PET in the 24.5oz bottle results in a reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of 61.4%, compared with glass. Additionally, using PET means 52% more 24.5oz bottles are in a truckload, which eliminates still more GHG. Such environmental benefits may vary in quantity but  generally they are typical when plastics replace other materials, a fact that environmental activists and groups should appreciate, or at least notice.

“In the end, lightweight PET not only delivered a major savings in terms of freight cost but also gave us the glass-like appearance and the shelf appeal to maintain our brand image,” said Joseph Perez, senior vice president of Goya Foods. Both bottle sizes are custom designed for both ambient fill (up to 140°F) and hot fill (up to 185°F) applications and are seamlessly integrated into existing glass filling lines with minimal adjustment, according to Perez.

Goya Foods, which offers more that 2,200 Latin American food products, also plans to replace glass with PET in an existing 12oz juice beverage line. Perez said the conversion to hot fill PET is expected by the summer.

The new Goya PET bottles are the first to feature Amcor’s new Origami hot-fill technology, incorporating six flat panels to counteract vacuum that occurs in hot filled containers and to maintain structural strength and integrity. The flat surfaces enhance gripping and consumer handling.

The SPI/IHS Global Plastics Summit, will be held November 4-6, 2013, in Chicago, Illinois

During the Summit’s three days, those leaders will share their insights on the market outlook for key polymer and raw materials, technical and product developments, innovations, challenges, and the opportunities facing the dynamic plastics industry, all the issues that impact plastic producers, converters, distributors and all related industry professionals.

“The abundant feedstock of shale gas is changing the global landscape for plastics manufacturing,” said William R. “Bill” Carteaux, president and chief executive officer of SPI. “It’s critical that America’s manufacturing leaders share their insights on how today’s evolving supply chain, reshoring trends and growing consumer demands for cleaner, greener manufacturing are changing our core business models.”

“As the industry leader in delivering the world’s most comprehensive chemical insight, market information, and consulting services, IHS is pleased to partner with such a respected organization as SPI in order to offer this event to the industry,” said Dave Witte, senior vice president and general manager of IHS Chemical.

“Our combined practical industry knowledge and insight, makes it possible for us to build a stimulating, timely and strategic program to help America’s manufacturers reposition their companies for the future,” said Carteaux. “Plastics manufacturers must understand these developments in order to capture new opportunities in both domestic and international markets.”

Carteaux also noted that solution-oriented workshops will hone in on manufacturing innovation, best practices and emerging new markets across the supply chain. “We’ll be asking participants to think beyond keynotes and get something done,” says Carteaux.

“The U.S. plastics industry is on the cusp of the next wave of domestic expansion,” said Nick Vafiadis, senior director of global polyolefins and plastics at IHS Chemical. “U.S. plastics manufacturers are becoming global suppliers at a level we’ve never seen before. These are interesting and exciting times for producers and this event will be an unparalleled, collaborative experience.”

To this long-time observer of the American plastics industry, the Global Plastics Summit is exceptionally well timed to clarify the issues and impacts of America’s abundant shale gas on plastic materials producers and processors, as well as on the brand owners who rely on plastics to manufacture their products or to make the packaging for their products, or both.

SPI recently created its Brand Owners Council in recognition of the critical position brand owners occupy in the plastics value chain. SPI’s existing Councils include the Processors Council, the Material Suppliers Council, and the Equipment and Machinery Council. Dealing with key issues such as zero waste, sustainability, and product safety, brand owners will be highly interested in participation at the Global Plastics Summit.

Plastics professionals, including brand owners who rely on plastics, should not miss the chance to chart their business future at the first Global Plastics Summit in Chicago, November 4-6, 2013. More information can be found at www.GlobalPlasticsSummit.com, and a full agenda and registration details will be forthcoming as the event draws near.

“From resin suppliers and equipment makers to processors and brand owners, SPI is proud to represent all facets of the U.S. plastics industry,” Bill Carteaux said. “Our most recent economic reports show that the plastics industry as a whole is resilient, and has come through the recession significantly better than other U.S. manufacturing sectors.”

A planet this beautiful deserves to be treated with great care, and fairly. (Photo: NASA)

In stark contrast with its good intentions, the annual April 22^nd Earth Day celebration never fails to resurrect many of the myths about plastics. Sadly, this year again saw many of the tired old plastics myths rise like zombies and stumble, maybe not through your town, but surely through the media.

Even the real science that clearly shows these fanciful tales are nothing but myths is not enough to kill them. Science is simply and conveniently ignored.

These zombie myths are far from harmless, however. For starters, they needlessly alarm the public. That’s bad enough, but the resulting hysteria then gets twisted in a way that directly threatens American manufacturing jobs in the plastics industry. Does anyone doubt we need more good jobs, not fewer?

These persistent plastics myths spring from and are kept alive by a variety of sources. Among the loudest are:

• Environmental activists and non-government organizations promoting their agendas,
• Journalists that fail to do basic research and simply repeat the myths,
• Businesses with a competing alternative material, or,
• Retailers that give in to the outcries of alarmist special interest groups.

The links below describe some of the more commonly heard myths about plastics. Click on them to see the facts about the safe use of plastic products, facts provided by experts in government, academia and industry. 

Common Myths About Plastics

1. Using plastic food containers or wraps in microwaves is dangerous.
2. Freezing water in plastic bottles releases dioxins into the water.
3. The number on the bottom of plastic cups, bottles and containers informs consumers about how to use a product or package.
4. Plastic food wraps and packages are made with phthalates.
5. Six-pack rings (beverage can binders) are a hazard to wildlife.

The myth mongers seem oblivious to the negative effects of their story telling, such as how they can wipe out well-paying jobs in America’s third-largest manufacturing sector—plastics. It is far more likely that they wear blinders by choice as they promote their agendas.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the zombie plastics myths abruptly dropped in their tracks like movie zombies often do. Not likely. In real life, the myth mongers work hard to keep the zombie plastic myths circulating. For many  it’s how they make their living. However, since facts are the best antidote for myths, arm yourself with the Plastics Champion described below.

______________________________________________

Have a Database of Facts About Plastics at Your Fingertips

SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association, in cooperation with seven other plastics-related associations, has published an online database of factual information about plastics called the Plastics Champion, and it’s yours to download or access online at no cost. You can find it  here: www.plasticschampion.org. For the iPhone and iPad, it’s free on the Apple App Store or via iTunes. Search ‘Plastics Champion’ or use this link. An Android app is being developed, but for now the website is mobile browser friendly. With  the Plastics Champion at hand you may actually enjoy your next encounter with a plastics myth spinner.

Subway’s new catering tray is 95% recycled PET soda and water bottles.

On April 22^nd, the Subway restaurant chain announced another step in its commitment to making its operations more environmentally responsible. Its newly introduced catering trays are made from 95% post-consumer recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic. Subway (Milford, CT) estimates this change will keep about 1.8 million pounds of plastic material from entering the waste stream each year.

Each tray and lid use PET material equivalent to about 19 20-ounce PET soda or water bottles, and Subway notes that the trays and lids can be recycled in commercial recycling facilities. “We have made a commitment to look at every facet of our day-to-day operations in order to make our restaurants more environmentally responsible,” said Elizabeth Stewart, Subway’s marketing director, who also oversees the brand’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.

In April of 2012, Subway announced that it was using new salad bowls, also made of 95% post-consumer-recycled (PCR) plastic, predominately from PET soda and water bottles. That, said Subway, would keep about 2.62 million pounds of plastics from going into landfills. To give that large number some perspective, when Subway announced the new salad bowls a year ago it had more than 36,000 locations worldwide. Today its website shows that number has risen to 39,263 restaurants in 102 countries.

Last year Subway began using salad bowls made of post-consumer recycled PET plastic material.

Subway says that both the salad bowls and the new catering trays, were created by Pactiv (Lake Forest, IL), which has 55 facilities in seven countries and says it’s the world’s largest manufacturer of food service items and packaging. Pactiv purchases post-consumer PET bottles, which it recycles and uses to manufacture the salad bowls and lids and the catering trays.

The recycling of PET trays and other thermoformed products has not been as widespread as PET bottle recycling, but it has been growing as more thermoformed PET products have gone to market.

To help accelerate the growth of recycling thermoformed PET, SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association and NAPCOR, the National Association for PET Container Resources, last year awarded three grants to companies in Maryland, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania to help them establish model programs for collection and intermediate processing of thermoformed PET packaging.

The polyurethane (PUR) supplier Henkel (Düsseldorf, Germany) and the composite component maker Benteler-SGL (Ried im Innkreis, Austria) jointly have developed a process they say will allow automakers to switch from the heavy steel leaf springs used in auto suspensions to composite leaf springs that can be up to 65% lighter.

This composite leaf spring of PUR resin weighs up to 65% less than metal leaf springs.

That’s a big savings. Auto designers who replace metal parts with plastics alternatives that save 10%, even 5%, are happy. Saving weight means better fuel economy, which translates into reduced emissions, two important goals in the transportation sector. A 65% weight reduction in a heavy steel part should get a party started.

It’s not that composite leaf springs are something new. They have been designed into a number of GM cars, the Corvette probably being the best known, as well a few Volvos, a Mercedes van, and the Smart ForTwo, to name a few. However, getting the production volume needed for mass-market cars remained a stumbling block. Cycle times were too long, so Henkel and Benteler-SGL developed a solution.

Henkel’s Loctite MAX 2 provides a polyurethane-based matrix resin that Henkel says cures significantly faster than the epoxy products usually used. In addition, the PUR’s low viscosity lets it penetrate the fiber material more easily and thoroughly, resulting in short injection times. Without releasing specifics, the  companies say  cycle time with this process will allow sufficiently high volume production.

A resin transfer molding press at Benteler-SGL.

Benteler-SGL is an established producer of carbon- and glass-fiber composite auto components such as side panels and doors, and uses the resin transfer molding (RTM) process to reach the output needed for mass-market autos. The RTM process enables control of the curing reaction by adjusting the temperature or by adding an accelerator.

Using Henkel’s PUR resin in Benteler-SGL’s RTM process reduces the risk of local overheating that can cause part shrinkage. The PUR generates less heat during curing than do the generally used epoxies. Even thick parts with many fiber layers cure quickly.

Henkel says it and Benteler-SGL  have developed a process that will make composite leaf springs on cycles short enough for high volume production, and the parts have an attractive properties profile. Add that to that 65% weight reduction from steel leaf springs and this definitely has possibilities.

Supply chains run both ways.

We all know that the manufacturing process begins with raw materials and ends with a finished product. But lately it feels more appropriate to consider the cycle in reverse — not pellet to product, but rather people to pellet. Consider this scenario: A brand owner decides

to change a product’s packaging to appeal to consumer desires for greater convenience, freshness, sustainability, visibility or all of the above. A design, or at least a concept, is decided upon. The brand owner takes the design concept to a packaging converter who optimizes the concept for performance, manufacturability and cost. The converter must put in a new line for the project and engages an equipment manufacturer. Together they reach out to material suppliers who help them obtain the desired properties for their new package.

SPI’s Flexible Film and Bag Division will be highlighting this dynamic at its Spring Conference (May 8-10 in Nashville). Attendees will hear from consumer trends expert Lyn Dornblaser of the Mintel Group, which will be followed by a real case study of one company’s move from rigid to flexible packaging. The panel highlighting Clorox’s packaging change for its Fresh Step Cat Litter includes supply chain members such as Mondi Group.

As SPI begins to grow and engage its new Brand Owner Council, it becomes increasingly clear that brand owners should be part of SPI to optimize these discussions. No matter which way it runs, the supply chain circle is now complete.

Who might think plastic bread bag closures would make a lovely wedding dress? The bride, that’s who.
© Constructing Nadine 

Though it’s increasingly clear that there is no end to the ways plastics can be reduced, reused and recycled, and that all those ways show creativity, transforming something as ordinary as the small plastic tabs that keep plastic bread bags closed into a wedding dress merits closer inspection.

Credit the idea, the design, and the making of the dress to Stephanie Watson, a fashion designer living in Trentham, Australia, a bit northwest of Melbourne. For this assignment, she also was the client, the bride. The dress became a ten-year project for her, starting when she and her boyfriend, now her husband, Will Wapling got together. The collecting of bread tags, as they are called in Australia, was soon underway.

© Constructing Nadine

Watson said it was just a joke at the start, but people started collecting them for her and they began filling jars, and then larger jars. Even so, ten years and thousands of tags later, there still were not enough to make the dress, which by then had been given a name, Nadine. To the rescue came Wapling’s cousin, a baker, who donated enough rolls of the plastic tags to get the job done.

Watson then was able to direct her design and sewing skills into making the idea a reality. Though the cost of the dress is said to be about AUD$36, Watson estimates that she invested more than 300 hours into its design and creation, including sewing ten thousand plastic tags to the lining in a way that the stitches didn’t show.

Overlapping the bread tags hides the stitching.

© Constructing Nadine

 

 

 

Watson told the local newspaper, “I just didn’t want to have a normal wedding gown.” Mission accomplished, to say the least, but the critical question has to be, how did the dress work out on the big day?

In her blog she says it was a bit uncomfortable. Small and light as bread tags are, ten thousand weigh about 15 pounds, and are not very flexible. That caused Watson to be a bit concerned about taking a tumble, but she held tightly onto Wapling and the big day went according to plan. In the photos, the groom seems pleased to be held onto.