The whole bag ban fad is illogical, irrational, and like so many other things that make the papers these days, unsupported by real science. But who needs facts when there are emotionally charged slogans and celebrities in attendance? Well, I do, and so do many others who favor reason, science, and facts.

Rather than me continuing to rant, I recommend that you read the following statement  from Mark Daniels, Chairman of the American Progressive Bag Alliance (APBA), the organization representing America’s plastic bag manufacturing and recycling sector, a part of the American economy that employs 30,800 people in 349 communities across the nation, including approximately 2,000 in California.

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 “By voting to ban plastic bags and impose a 10-cent tax on paper bags, the Los Angeles City Council has sent a terrible message to manufacturers, small businesses and working families in the City of Los Angeles. After recently being voted down in the State Senate, the California Grocers Association continues to peddle this bag ban and tax scam around the state because big grocers stand to make millions from collecting every penny of the tax on paper bags. This ordinance has been sold to the public through junk science in the name of the environment, but bag bans and taxes don’t help the environment – they make things worse. A tax on consumers is hurtful and, worse, a ban on plastic bags threatens the jobs of the 1,000 hard-working employees of Los Angeles area plastic bag manufacturers.

 “Not only is this poor economic policy, it will do more harm to the environment by pushing residents towards higher carbon footprint products. Reusable bags require significantly more water and energy to produce than plastic bags and emit more greenhouse gases in their lifecycle. Furthermore, reusable bags are shipped from overseas, are predominantly made from foreign oil, and cannot be recycled. By passing this ordinance, the L.A. City Council has sadly ignored the facts and voted in favor of limiting consumer choice, increasing grocery bills, killing local jobs and harming the environment.”

Mark Daniels, Chairman
American Progressive Bag Alliance

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APBA fought hard and rationally against the L.A. ban and so-called tax, much as it has against others previously. It made detailed presentations to the City Council that substantiate the points Daniels makes about jobs, grocery bills, freedom of choice, and the environmental damage. Mark Daniels and the entire American Progressive Bag Alliance will continue to argue on the side of reason.

 If you would rather have rational, scientifically valid solutions to real problems, and therefore are not caught up in the bag ban fad, please jump in and support APBA’s efforts locally. All the factual info you need to make the case against bans is on the APBA website and the Bag the Ban website. Becoming informed is the best first step.

Bag bans rank high on the list of frauds and con jobs ever pulled on well-meaning Americans. That is absolutely shameful, but the perpetrators are shameless. Though I’m still abstaining from a real rant, there is one feature of the Los Angeles ban that keeps nagging at me: Is this the first time the proceeds of a “tax” created by an American political body go directly to private organizations, or have I missed a trend?

Roger Klouda
MSI Mold Builders Inc
SPE Mold Maker of the Year 2013

At an event during Amerimold 2013 in Rosemont, IL on June 12th, the Society of Plastics Engineers’ (SPE) Mold Making and Mold Design Division gave its Mold Maker of the Year Award for 2013 to Roger Klouda, president of MSI Mold Builders Inc., Cedar Rapids, IA.

The awards go to people who have shown they can adapt to changing technology, provide career and technical guidance to others, and share their information and experience with others in the industry. That description fits Roger Klouda perfectly, and there is still more worthy of respect.

In 1978, Klouda joined MSI Mold Builders, which his parents had founded in 1971. In 1990, the company moved to its present 35,000 square foot facility in Cedar Rapids. Continuing to grow, in 2001 MSI opened a 20,000 square foot facility in Greenville, SC to better service its clients in the Southeast.

Today, the 75 employees in the two plants can produce tools from eight by eight inches to six by eight feet and weighing up to 30 tons. The company is driven by lean principals, continuous process improvement, and commitment to ISO principals, having received ISO 9001:2008 Certification in 2010.

Besides his involvement with SPE, Klouda is very active in SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association, of which MSI Mold Builders is a long-term member. He currently is a member of SPI’s National Board, Board of Directors, Membership Subcommittee, and Equipment Council, and in the past has held other positions. That part of the Mold Builder of the Year that is for sharing information and experience with others is evident at SPI meetings.

The part of the award recognizing career and technical guidance is evident from Klouda’s activity with Kirkwood Community College, also in Cedar Rapids. He provided seed money for a tuition assistance program at the college to help students complete the CNC Machinist Certification Program.

Klouda is also active outside the plastics sector. For example, he helps the iWarriors organization set up three years ago by another mold maker, Tim Bartz of Mold Craft Inc. (Willernie, MN). iWarriors organizes donations of iPads to wounded members of the 5^th Marine Regiment, which recently in Afghanistan added to a long history of hard combat. The iPads help wounded Marines stay in touch with family and friends, a key aspect of their recovery.

One Okabashi customer’s well-protected flip-flops.

Okabashi has created a closed-loop recycling system for its shoes and for the material it uses to make them. Virtually nothing is wasted and virtually none of its material goes to a landfill—ever. For instance, production scrap is fed to a grinder and then used to make new flip-flops and shoes.

But to be a fullyclosed-loop recycling system, the post-consumer waste, in this case shoes and sandals, must be recycled as well. So Okabashi created a system aimed at keeping its shoes out of landfills.

Okabashi customers, who sound more like fans, say the sandals and shoes are so comfortable that they wear them as often as they can. Naturally, they will wear out, but when they do the user simply sends them back to the factory in Buford, Georgia. To encourage the return of used-up shoes, Okabashi gives a coupon toward the purchase of a new pair.

Returned footwear is inspected for contaminants, then like production scrap, is sent into a grinder, softened and returned to the production line for its next life. Post-consumer and production scrap makes up 15 to 25 percent of a pair of new Okabashi shoes.

Okabashi offers various styles, and recycles them all.

Alternatively, Okabashi advises customers that a well-worn pair can also be recycled locally by the owner, and suggests contacting 1800recycling.com to find a nearby recycling location that takes #3 material, the Resin Identification Code (RIC) for PVC/Vinyl. Does that give away the secret of the company’s proprietary Microplast material? No. Basic PVC is rigid, and wearers of these sandals rave about how comfortable they are. The secret is how that’s achieved.

The company says that last year alone it was able to regrind and reuse over 100,000 pounds of scrap material, which kept the equivalent of 10 tractor-trailer loads of waste material out of the landfills.

In a CNN video report on Okabashi Brands, the company’s VP marketing, Brad Laporte, said the company sends nothing into oceans or landfills. He also mentioned that, since Okabashi in one way or another uses virtually 100 percent of the raw material it works with, its costs are lower, which helps explain why almost all the company’s shoes and sandals cost less than $20.

For that low price Okabashi gives a lot more than good looks and recyclability. The shoes and sandals are anti-microbial, said to help arthritis sufferers, and are endorsed by the American Chiropractic Association. They have Japanese-inspired massaging insoles and a real arch, are dishwasher-safe (it sanitizes them), carry a two-year guarantee, and are vegan-friendly.

Another feature appreciated by customers is that all the shoes and flip-flops are “Made in the USA” at the Buford factory. There are good economic reasons for that, but also some solid environmental benefits. The average shipping distance for Okabashi shoes is about 7 percent that of the average imported shoe, a difference of almost 10,000 miles, which translates into much less greenhouse gas in the air.

50 middle school students now know how Pioneer Plastics makes things.

The youngsters think it’s dark and dreary, that the image of late 19^th century factories is today’s reality. Meanwhile, everyone in manufacturing, especially in the plastics sector, knows that today’s manufacturing environments are, in reality, pretty darn nice places to work, and that the work is interesting and creative.

Obviously what’s needed is to bring students into manufacturing facilities so they can experience it for themselves. So here’s a big shout-out to Pioneer Plastics (North Dixon, KY) for acting on that problem by bringing students into its factory and doing its part to change those mistaken impressions.

Pioneer Plastics has 23 injection molding systems and a thermoforming machine

We came across a story on the 14 News website of WFIE, the NBC affiliated TV station based in Evansville, IN, that describes how Pioneer Plastics hosted 50 middle school kids from Henderson County, KY, the home territory of Pioneer Plastics. The students are visiting several manufacturing locations this week as part of a program conducted by Henderson Community College. Next week they will be visiting healthcare facilities. Manufacturing will be very real to them…the real manufacturing world, that is.

In operation for 35 years, Pioneer Plastics works in a 100,000-ft² facility, most of which is less than ten years old. It custom molds plastic products such as display cases for sports and collectibles, cups and plates, as well as a variety of aftermarket parts used to maintain and repair equipment such as food processing machinery, airplane engines and more. To fulfill the short-run orders for these parts, Pioneer has nearly 3000 service molds, and a very healthy niche market.

Collins Engineering is the toolmaking side of Pioneer Plastics in North Dixon, KY.

Pioneer has 23 injection molding systems ranging from 110 tons to 990 tons of clamp force, as well as a thermoforming machine. Apart from the production floor, Pioneer also designs and builds production tools in house, a corner of the manufacturing world the kids should find very interesting. (The kid in me does.)

One sixth-grader who spoke with a 14 News reporter found it more than interesting. Asha Nalley said, “I’m a good puzzle solver. Like I can do things really fast like that and factory stuff is kind of like that. You have to be able to put things together and find missing pieces, and that’s why I kinda wanted to do it.”

Seeing plastics manufacturing live and in person makes a difference. It can show someone a place where they can fit, a place they most probably knew nothing about before coming to visit. Well done, Pioneer Plastics.

SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association is leading a coalition of North American plastics associations in the launch of a line of branded clothing made from recycled plastic that will work as uniforms, business gifts, gear for meetings, trade shows and other events.

The brand name is resinGEAR and the other plastics associations joining SPI in this effort are the Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA), the Plastic Pipe Institute (PPI) and the Western Plastics Association (WPA). Part of the proceeds from sale of the clothing and other gear will go back to the associations to help support their sustainability programs.

SPI President and CEO William R. Carteaux said, “Since we expanded our organization’s mission to include the promotion of zero waste strategies, SPI has been seeking innovative ways to show we ‘walk the walk.’” He added that resinGEAR, along with SPI’s other sustainability and recycling initiatives, visibly shows the North American plastics industry’s dedication to keeping its products out of landfills, as well as pushing sustainable manufacturing. The resinGEAR program will generate funding for future SPI sustainability initiatives.

The colorful (to say the least) resinGEAR items you see with this post are a small sample of the executive, promotional, uniform, and sports gear in the line, which includes many more shirts, plus jackets, hats, tote bags, and more. Most of the items are available in more colors than what you see on this page, including white, gray, black, and navy blue.

The clothing and other resinGEAR items can be customized and branded with the buyer’s logo and company name, and the variety of choices means everyone connected with a company, from top managers to production staff to customers can visually demonstrate the company’s sustainability commitment. The website describes the recycled content in more detail.

All the resinGEAR merchandise is made in the USA or Canada, and not only is the clothing made from recycled plastic, but it also is itself recyclable.

If you attended one of SPI’s meetings this spring you saw samples of resinGEAR, most likely the shirts pictured on this page. I have one in that brilliant orange color and I like it. It’s comfortable and a great way to make a statement in favor of recycling plastic, and as the line from Mel Brooks’ film The Producers puts it, if you got it, flaunt it.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has created a new coalition website to increase awareness of the many negative impacts that will result if a proposed ban of polystyrene (PS) foam foodservice products in New York City is enacted. The ACC says the site, which is called “Put a Lid On It NYC”, is aimed at encouraging city leaders to explore the opportunities for and advantages of recycling the PS foam items, rather than legislating a ban and having to enforce it.

The city’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, proposed the ban and it’s expected that the New York City Council will begin considering it soon. Momentum is already growing against the ban among restaurant owners and various industry organizations, and the information on the website will help business owners, as well as consumers, recognize the impacts and use them to make the case against the ban to their local elected officials.

Accordingly, the website’s first pull-down tab is “Get the Facts.” Click it and a compact listing of issues appears, with sections on recycling, environmental impacts, economic impacts, and the impacts specifically on businesses. To take just one area, contrary to what many read on the Internet and repeat, PS foam is being recycled right now, and it has been for decades. It’s not being done in New York City, but the Big Apple also not have commercial recycling available for paper-based foodservice items either.

The website makes clear that there already is a market for recycled PS foam in the tri-state (NJ/NY/CT) area, with an established recycling business in operation across the Hudson River in North Brunswick, NJ. The environmental and economic advantages of PS foam versus coated paperboard are similarly compelling.

One business owner, Elizabeth Sandigo of Grand Bakery in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, said, “ A ban is not the answer. I use these products because they work and because they are economical. The alternatives cost more, which will hurt my bottom line and my ability to create jobs. The City needs to stop adding to the burden of doing business here in the name of ineffective proposals that do nothing to address the issues they are meant to solve.”

The website’s other resources include news updates and recent announcements, downloadable research reports, information about communities already recycling polystyrene foam foodservice items, and how-to information for those wanting to contact their City Council member. And there’s more. Check it out for yourself at www.putalidonitnyc.com and you’ll be much better informed about PS foam recycling in general, as well as the particular situation in New York City.

Here are two other noteworthy plastics-based solutions to African problems, one as simple as the plastic bottle water purification, the other an ingeniously creative life saver.

The simple first: “Plastic Bags to Keep Premature Babies Warm” is the headline of a short New York Times article whose hero is the plastic bag erroneously considered a villain by many. A study of newborn babies in Zambia showed that a technique practiced in the USA, swaddling premature babies in sterile plastic wrap to keep their body temperatures from dropping dangerously, can be copied in poorer countries using plastic bags similar to grocery bags.

Water evaporates rapidly through the thin skin of premature babies and that can lead to life threatening heat loss. The study published in the journal Pediatrics showed that wrapping babies in plastic bags and then in a blanket was better at keeping babies warm than a blanket alone, with no instances of overheating or skin rashes.

The AidPod medicine packages fit in the spaces between Coca-Cola bottles for travel to remote African villages.

Now the creative solution: The U.K.-based design firm pi Global, recently won the Diamond Award, the top honor at the 25^th anniversary edition of the DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation, as well as the Special Food Security Award. Pi Global developed the AidPod package for ColaLife, an independent non-profit organization (NGO) that works with The Coca-Cola Company’s distribution network to bring medicines into remote areas of Africa.

A Eureka moment came to Simon Berry, a former British aid worker in Zambia, when he realized that he could get a Coca-Cola virtually anywhere, yet one in seven children were dying from preventable causes before turning five, most from dehydration due to diarrhea. Berry founded the ColaLife organization and is now its CEO.

The AidPod is purpose-designed to nest between the bottles in Coca-Cola crates (see photo), thereby gaining a ride to remote villages for life-saving medicine it carries. Pi Global created a package that is also a functional part of the kit, both as a measured-dose mixing container and a drinking vessel. Early in the AidPod’s development, according to Berry, plastics were selected over cardboard for barrier properties, light weight, and the ability to design in the dosage-measuring water cup.

The AidPod package took top honors in DuPont’s 2013 Packaging Innovation Awards.

In presenting the Diamond Award, William J. Harvey, President of DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers, pointed out that the awards originally sought to champion collaboration as a critical component in innovation. “Twenty-five years later … it’s clear that collaboration remains central to bringing innovation to market,” he said.

A blog post by plastics journalist Doug Smock on the PlasticsToday website details more of the AidPod collaboration: pi Global “…designed a patented wedge-shape, vacuum-formed container made of 80% recycled PET, the plastic used as virgin material in soda bottles. Other partners joined the effort. Charpack makes the container and lid; Amcor Flexibles produces P-Plus perforated peelable film to seal the pack closed; and Packaging Automation makes the machinery that heat-seals the film to the AidPod.”

Coca-Cola is generally considered the most recognized single brand in the world, and thanks to the company’s distribution skills, you can find a cold one pretty much anywhere in the world. The AidPod has the potential to improve world health on a large scale. Pretty impressive for a plastic package made mostly from recycled PET (polyester terephthalate).

Dart (Mason, MI) is one of the largest producers of EPS foam food packaging and serving ware worldwide, and a major recycler of EPS as well. The company annually collects more than 1.5 million pounds of post-consumer polystyrene foam and since 1998 has recycled more than 60 million pounds.

Those are big numbers, but considering that EPS is about 95% air, the mass of what Dart recycles is, well, massive. The post-consumer EPS that Dart accepts and recycles at 18 of its plants worldwide (13 in North America) is subsequently used to make picture frames, building insulation, lumber and much more.

Holbrook spoke with Michael Westerfield, corporate director of recycling programs at Dart, and what comes through most clearly is the depth and breadth of Dart’s recycling program. Dart has many ways to make it easy for users of foam products to recycle them.

Dart Container’s PS foam recycling support includes collection/shipping containers such as this one.

For example, Dart’s Recycla-Pak program equips users of foam cups with corrugated recycling bins and everything else needed for collecting and returning foam cups to Dart for recycling, including pre-paid shipping. The company’s CARE program—Cups Are REcyclable—helps high volume users of foam food service items separate them from other materials, consolidate the collected material, and arrange to have it recycled.

The CARE program offers a densifier—a piece of equipment that compacts (densifies) large quantities of foam products into small, shippable units. That reduces the space used to store collected foam, the frequency of material pick-ups, and since it dramatically increases the pounds of foam in a truckload, it reduces the carbon footprint of the total recycling process.

Dart offers resources that simplify foam recycling to every type of EPS user, including consumers and local governments. In recent years, the company has expanded its support of curbside collection. Los Angeles began its first foam-recycling project in 2007 and today more than 65 California cities have access to curbside EPS recycling.

Dart’s comprehensive approach to foam recycling also can be seen in its internal operations. A recent regional dinner of SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association featured a plant tour of Dart’s 1.6 million sq. ft. Waxahachie, TX facility, including the recycling center that’s open to the public. Dart is an SPI member company. Those who toured the facility said they were very impressed by the technology and the overall organization.

In the Plastics News article, Dart’s Westerfield says, “Most people, when you talk to the general public, don’t even know foam is recyclable. The fact that we’ve overcome that and grown in such a short period of time, that’s very positive.” Dart’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. Earlier this year, the EPS Industry Alliance gave Dart Container its Excellence in EPS Recycling Award for “…extraordinary commitment to the advancement of expanded polystyrene recycling.”

Full Plastics News article here.

Anti-Gravity Object modeling is a departure from current 3D printing technology.

Petr Novikov and Saša Jokić of the IAAC created Mataerial, a new additive manufacturing process that prints plastic as a rod that sticks to horizontal, vertical, smooth or irregular surfaces and can be extended without the need for additional support structures.

The two students designed the equipment to carry out the Mataerial process during their internship at the Joris Laarman Lab in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. They equipped a multi-axis industrial robot with a nozzle that extrudes the 3D plastic rods. A computer design file dictates the shape and direction of the rods, just as with a flatbed 3D printer.

A key innovation with respect to current 3D printers is that “Anti-Gravity Object Modeling,” as the designers call it, uses two-component thermosetting polymer rather than the thermoplastic polymer used in flat 3D printers.

Thermoplastic materials enter a mold or extrusion die hot and harden as they cool. Conversely, thermoset materials solidify as they are heated. In this case, the chemical reaction between two unidentified components causes the material to solidify as it exits the nozzle, creating rods solid enough to form unsupported hanging curves.

The video below shows the process in operation. Extrusion speed for this process depends on factors including the material and the thickness of the extruded rod. In the video, the extrusion rate was about a meter in three minutes, however the video is played at 3X actual speed to show the process more quickly.

The happy little guy above is Kaiba Gionfriddo, 19 months old, having fun with every breath he takes, but if a brilliant medical team had not placed a 3D-printed plastic splint onto his bronchial airway to hold it open, it’s unlikely he would be alive today.

Kaiba was born with a rare condition called tracheobronchomalacia, which causes the airways to be weak and prone to collapse. Additionally, some of the arteries around his heart were malformed; encircling the trachea tightly enough to compress the airway.

Sadly, most parents only become aware of this when their child suddenly stops breathing and dies. Baby Kaiba stopped breathing and turned blue in a restaurant when he was six weeks old. His father, Bryan Gionfriddo, used CPR to revive him, but the episodes continued and Kaiba was put on a breathing machine when he was two months old. Despite the best treatments available, it was virtually certain that he would die soon.

Kaiba’s doctor in Youngstown, Ohio had learned that doctors at the University of Michigan were developing a solution for this problem and contacted them. The UM doctors’ solution was to put a tubular device around the trachea that would hold it open. The tube/scaffold/splint has small holes the surgeon can use to suture it in place.

Since this would be the first time the device was used on a human, the doctors requested and received special permission to proceed from their school’s advisory board and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

University of Michigan doctors made a model of the trachea and then built the plastic splint using a 3D bioprinter.

The medical team made a model of Kaiba’s trachea and, using a program they developed, designed the tubular scaffold. The bioplastic material they used to build the scaffold on their 3D bioprinter is called polycaprolactone (PCL), a polymer approved by the FDA to fill small holes in the skull. The bioprinter melts the powder material and then builds the designed shape layer by micro-thin layer. The doctors made many of them in different sizes.

In February of 2012 the U. of Michigan surgical team carefully rearranged Kaiba’s twisted heart arteries and trachea, and then carefully placed the splint. And as soon as the splint was put in, the little lungs began moving up and down for the first time. The doctors say that in three years the material will be completely reabsorbed and excreted by the body, and the airways will be able to function on their own.

Kaiba went home three weeks after the surgery and has not had a breathing crisis since. His parents say he is learning how to get around and is being spoiled by his 6-year-old brother and 11-year-old sister.

The new procedure using the splint made by 3D printing  plastic material was made public this week by the medical team at the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI via an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. There is now hope for children born with this rare condition, where previously there was virtually none.

Polycaprolactone is a biodegradable polyester material, and the PCL used in 3D printing — also known as additive manufacturing (AM) — is a special grade of the material. Probably the most common use of PCL is in the manufacturing of polyurethane materials, where it helps achieve good water, oil, solvent, and chlorine resistance. It is also added to other resins to improve their processing and certain end-product properties, for example impact resistance.