myPlasticsindustry

My Knowledge 03-10-08

My Knowledge

Week in Review
PUBLISHED 03/10/2008

Connecticut: A Life Where 'Or Plastic' Isn't An Option

Since their debut in supermarket checkout lines in 1977, plastic shopping bags have become the tote of choice. Back then, plastic seemed like a good option: a way to stop cutting down so many trees to make all those paper bags. They take less energy and are less polluting to produce than paper. They're lighter, easy to carry, reusable. But they are also starting to look like the quintessential environmental nightmare. Shoppers use 100 billion a year in the U.S. alone, and they have become a universal symbol of a throwaway consumer culture -- use them for a few minutes, then throw them out. And, like many things plastic, they last a long time -- by some estimates, up to 1,000 years. The bags wind up as litter, blowing in the wind, and tons of them float out to sea, where they pose a different kind of threat. Sea turtles, who love jellyfish but seem unable to tell the difference, eat them and die from suffocation or starvation. The bags also harm birds, dolphins and seals, environmentalists say. Now, the legislature is considering a bill to ban them. ...The Hartford Courant, 3.7.08
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SPI’s BPSA To Accept "End-Users" Of Single-Use Technology Into Its Membership

The Bio-Process Systems Alliance (BPSA), a business unit of the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI), Inc., announced today that it will begin accepting “end-user” members into the organization. Complete membership information will be available at BPSA booth #369 at Interphex, a leading pharmaceutical manufacturing event, taking place March 26-28 2008 in Philadelphia. The upcoming participation of biopharmaceutical and biotherapeutic drug companies completes the business plan initiatives that BPSA set down when it was formed in 2005. Currently, the majority of BPSA's 44 member companies are single-use component manufacturers, systems integrators, or contract manufacturers. Now, end-users will be accepted as BPSA members, under the umbrella of the SPI, the plastics industry trade association. “Bringing the end-users into the BPSA fold completes the value-chain circuit for us” said Rick Sullivan (Thermo Fisher Scientific), chairman of BPSA’s executive board. “Single-use technology is still in its infancy. But the speed, economy and process flexibility are so compelling that we must now come together to drive the creative process around all that the single-use concept promises for the future. The single use format is destined to help humanity lead longer, healthier lives. I welcome the dialog that adding our friends on the end-user side of single-use will bring. It represents a great opportunity for us all.” ...SPI, 3.5.08
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Erie Plastics Lays Off 192 Employees

Erie Plastics has laid off 192 employees, citing the completion of contracts with a major consumer-products company. Those layoffs, which came Friday, affect salaried and hourly employees at the plant, which makes a variety of plastic lids and other plastic parts. Union employees -- represented by the International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Salaried, Machine and Furniture Workers-Communications Workers of America -- apparently knew problems could be coming. "But the massive amount of it was a surprise, it really was," said Suzanne Chase, president of IUE-CWA Local 681. For its part, the company expressed a desire to keep its comments brief, describing the discontinuation of the product lines as "rapid and unanticipated." The layoffs affect 49 salaried employees and 143 hourly workers, according to a federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filing the company made with the state Department of Labor and Industry. Before the layoffs, the plant employed 359 people, according to the W.A.R.N. ...Erie Times-News, 3.4.08
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SPI-PAC Revived To Boost Plastic Industry’s Legislative Agenda

SPI has recently revived its political action committee (SPI-PAC). The only PAC uniquely focused on the needs of the plastics industry, SPI-PAC makes it possible to increase both the visibility and support of the plastics industry's agenda in Congress. However, before we encourage your participation, we must first ask that your company signs a prior authorization form. Please fill out the form and return it to SPI as soon as possible. Corporations can authorize only one, federal-level trade association PAC to solicit a corporation's executives and managers during any single calendar year. Before SPI-PAC can solicit your company's executives and managers, your company must first authorize that solicitation in writing. There are six calendar years on the accompanying authorization form. By placing your signature next to a given year, you may authorize SPI-PAC to solicit your company's executives for one or more of the next six years. ...SPI, 2.29.08
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Non-Toxic Tots: Parents Pay Handsomely For Peace Of Mind Products

There's a six-week wait for a $15 stainless steel sippy cup made without harmful compounds. At the annual toy show in New York last month, retailers lined up to put in orders for a children's tea set made of recycled plastic milk jugs. And some big box chains are eager to start selling a $300 organic crib mattress that was tested in a special chamber to ensure it doesn't emit any dangerous gases. Last year's recalls of lead-tainted toys alerted many parents to the possible presence of toxic substances where they least expected it: in their child's favorite toy. Entrepreneurs and national retailers learned a lesson too: Uncertainty over the safety of the everyday products that surround their children means parents are willing to pay handsomely for peace of mind. All they have to do is look at the rapid growth of businesses that cater to chemical-conscious moms and dads. New parents -- a growing portion of whom are members of tech savvy and advertising-averse Generation X -- have turned to blogs to read up on the potential health effects of plastic additives such as phthalates and bisphenol A, and to track down products that contain alternative compounds, no matter how obscure. ...Washington Post, 3.1.08
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