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In terms of Easter Good Friday, Passover and spring breaks, the April 1-5 dates for NPE2012 were the only ones available that would meet move-in, move-out and other logistical requirements. Virtually all event participants except exhibit breakdown crews will have left Orlando by Thursday night or Friday morning. SPI has made an arrangement with the Walt Disney Company for package discounts that NPE participants can use
on the weekend before or after NPE2012. As for the 2015 show, the schedule is for March 22-26, fully two weeks before either holiday.

Surprisingly, travel expenses for Midwesterners attending the show in Orlando will be 19% less than if the show were in Chicago. This figure includes comparative costs for air travel, driving, parking, cabs, hotels, and meals and reflects adjustments made to take into account the share of Midwestern attendees who are within driving distance of Chicago.

Additionally, April 1-5, 2012 and the week before and after is spring break time. Availability and rates for air travel and hotel accommodations will be inordinately challenged. Not to mention that NPE 2012 will disrupt families’ plans to vacation together at this time.

With the relocation to Orlando, industry professionals from plastics-heavy states neighboring Chicago will no longer have easy driving access to NPE. After 2012 NPE, please report if an attendance decline is proven from attendees in Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan.

Was this decision to change venues and dates all about which city made the best presentation or what is in the best interest of the trade show organization, the exhibitors and, very importantly, the attendees?

DURING SPRING BREAK????????

I can’t even purchase airfare from Grand Rapids to Orlando during that timeframe for under a small fortune NOR DO I WANT TO FIGHT THE SPRING BREAK CROWDS AT THE SAME TIME AS MY NPE FELLOWS.

CHOOSE A BETTER TIME THAN APRIL 1-5

I live in a municipality considerably to the far east of Toronto yet many of the stores here have adopted the 5¢ plastic bag fee.

I asked if there was a similar by-law in my municipality as in Toronto and there is not. The stores simply took it upon themselves to duplicate the Toronto by-law.

Stores have always charged for plastic bags – it’s built into the cost of the products.

Has this “hidden” plastic bag fee been dropped from the price of products since the advent of the new 5¢ fee? I seriously doubt it. So, in addition to that “hidden” fee, the stores are also raking in the 5¢ fee.

What’s even more unethical is that customers who bring in their own bags may not pay the 5¢ per bag but are still charged the “hidden” fee.

The stores outside of Toronto have no obligation to charge the 5¢ plastic bag fee but do so voluntarily.

No municipal by-law says they have to charge the amount and like Toronto, the stores get to keep the cash and/or may donate some to a highly non-transparent environmental program, the results of which are questionable at best.

In the end, less plastic bags may be used but I feel that it’s the stores that are “cleaning up” at the cash registers, with the customers getting no real benefit what so ever.

It would seem that this is an opportunity for the resin manufacturers to join together under the guidance of one non-biased Industry group such as SPI to create an industry guidance document that is based on the science of the polymers, design capabilities, (such as ability to light weight), actual and potential re-use and recycling rates here in Canada and the EU along with actual and perceived end of life scenarios.

The Plastic’s Industry needs to communicate solid definable information to the public be it good, bad or indifferent, and in order to achieve that goal it is going to require substantial depths of resources from the resin manufacturing community. But at the end of the day it will always be better to have information based on fact in the hands of the consumer.

My impression is that the Scorecard is trying to highlight the fact that some types of plastic are more damaging to the environment than others, so it would be desirable to choose the plastic that is more sustainable if all other performance requirements are met. If this is the scope of analysis, it may be justifiable to omit certain lifecycle stages if they are unlikely to impact the final outcome (i.e. trucking a batch of plastic from point A to point B is going to have the same impact regardless of what type of plastic is in the truck). LCA is not a precise science, it will involve some value judgment by the practitioner, ideally incorporating expert input. I hope that SPI’s technical experts will forward their comments to Clean Production Action so that the next revision of the Scorecard will be more accurate.

This is a great blog and, P.S. I voted for you on the BloggersChoice awards and wondered if you would like to vote for us in the Best Eco Education category, we are at;
http://bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/78212