Join us December 13 at 2PM EST for a Plastics In Politics Livestream. It’s busy as always in the plastics policy arena. In December, we can preview the upcoming U.S. midterm elections, and look at the Biden administration getting an earful on whether it should require government agencies to buy fewer single-use plastics. In the states, we’ll discuss California lawmakers passing – and Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoing – a bill that…
Forsooth! The Bard of Boulder has a few words for thee! Heinz recently announced that it has developed a monomaterial ketchup cap that’s recyclable. Company packaging engineers spent 185,000 hours and $1.2 million figuring out how to remove a flexible silicone valve to ensure that the cap was produced solely from food grade polypropylene. After 9 years and 45 iterations, the cap is now being rolled out in the UK.…
Noble Plastics’ employees are used to working with tablets to record downtime, production lots and QC checks. An in-house project would give them access to personal dashboards providing realtime analysis of whether their job’s production at the current rate is likely to meet the output goal for the shift. The cloud-based system allows operators to seek immediate technical assistance if needed. (Photo: Noble Plastics) As Scott Rogers sees it, most…
We hope you had a swell Thanksgiving! This week’s issue features our 2022 North American Compounders directory. Compounders are facing a slowing demand as the global economy also slows down. Frank Esposito examines what we saw in 2022 and what compounders are expecting for 2023. He also wrote several stories on hand at the AMI Compounding World Expo. Speaking of the economy, we hear from PN‘s economics editor Bill Wood…
Section 179 is one of the more misunderstood parts of the US tax code. While many companies take advantage of the tax deduction for equipment purchases, a surprising number of US businesses do not. Data is hard to come by, but according to a 2016 report by the US Department of the Treasury, the Section 179 allowance was used generally in the 70 to 80% range for C and S…
Korea’s LG Chem plans to construct an innovative carbon mitigation facility that will produce raw materials for plastics using carbon dioxide to build its foundation to achieve 2050 Net Zero. The company will construct a Dry Reforming of Methane (DRM) facility, which can produce plastics using carbon dioxide captured at the plant and the byproduct gas, methane. The DRM facility will be constructed as a 1,000-tonne/year pilot plant at the…
North American prices for most commodity resins continued to drop in October. Price declines were seen in markets for polypropylene, PVC, polystyrene and PET bottle resin. Polyethylene prices in the regions were flat for the month. Regional PP prices were down an average of 15 cents per pound, according to market sources contacted by Plastics News. That drop was a combination of a decline in price for polymer-grade propylene (PGP)…
Here are the most-read articles at Plastics Technology in November 2022. From commodity resins to your molding process, even with some K 2022 review products, our coverage brought readers answers and knowledge this Autumn. Make sure to come back next week when our December 2022 issue is published with a whole new set of feature and technical articles. Happy Thanksgiving from Plastics Technology!Photo Credit: Stock Image
Spot resin trading improved last week. A relatively high volume of resin was sold through the PlasticsExchange platform, said the Chicago-based resin clearinghouse in its Market Update, and more railcars than truckloads changed hands. Along with regular customers, some processors that had been on the sidelines came in to secure material ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday week. Producers have continued efforts to tighten supplies by running reactors at reduced operating…
Advanced Design & Manufacturing Montréal, Canada’s largest manufacturing expo with five co-locates including Expoplast, returned after a four-year hiatus to welcome more than 3,250 verified attendees and nearly 200 international exhibitors at the Palais des congrès de Montréal. Taking place on Nov. 9 and 10, the five co-located events — Expoplast, Pack Ex Montréal, Automation Technology (ATX) Montréal, Design & Manufacturing (D&M) Montréal, and Powder & Bulk Solids Montréal — convened…