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May 14, 2008
Wal-Mart calls the shots
A couple of plastics-related stories today have a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. connection. First, the retailer announced on Monday that its stores in Canada are phasing out plastic packaging from its energy-saving light bulbs.
"The change will eliminate an estimated 150,000 pounds of PVC plastic waste each year, increase package recyclability and save natural resources," the company announced in its news release. It cited its "packaging scorecard" as a driver in the decision.
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart, Toys "R" Us Inc. and Target Stores Inc. announced that they have instructed their toy suppliers to meet strict new standards on the amount of lead and other materials. The retailers' standards are stricter than what is called for by House and Senate bills, according to this Associated Press story. The story goes on to address some plastics-related materials: phthalates and bisphenol A.
Bentonville-based Wal-Mart told its suppliers to reduce the amount of phthalates, a chemical used to soften plastics. The updated Wal-Mart requirement matches rules in California, standards Toys "R" Us and Target say they will also meet. The California rules limit phthalates to 0.1 percent.
That looks like the last word on the subject of phthalates and childrens' products. Others can continue the debate. But once Wal-Mart decides, suppliers will find a way to meet the standard.
Life without plastic?
The editor of Rockford Woman magazine in Rockford, Ill., is trying to go without plastic for a week. I'm not really sure why she's doing it, but she is blogging about the experience.
Actually, Jennie Pollock does explain why she's doing this in one of her blog posts. It's because she was challenged to do so for a story assignment. But she doesn't explain why, though. I suppose the average Rockford Woman reader just assumes that plastics are bad and should be avoided. It's one of those things that goes without saying.
Although the blog initially promises a life without plastic, it seems that the actual exercise has taken a different direction. What she's really doing is trying to spend a week without buying anything made of plastic.
As we've learned so far, it's made buying bandages, food and toys difficult.
Sorry, but it's tough to write about this exercise without being a bit sarcastic.
I understand that not everyone is going to see the value in every plastic product. But trying to live without all plastics isn't any "greener" than trying to live without aluminum, steel, glass, or paper, is it?
Sustainability for competitive advantage
The San Francisco Chronicle has an interesting column about businesses embracing "sustainability." Chris Laszlo, author of "Sustainable Value; How the World's Leading Companies are Doing Well by Doing Good," argues that sustainability is a "huge opportunity" for businesses.
Solar technology and cellulosic polymers are examples of innovations that could eventually transform the energy and plastics sectors. Consumers will choose cleaner energy at a lower cost, just as they will opt for the shopping bag that biodegrades over the plastic one that doesn't, as long as quality remains the same and they don't have to pay more for it.
He adds: "Given half a chance, most corporate leaders want to do good if they can do well at the same time. When that happens, we could see a rapid transformation to a more sustainable world. After all, what other institution has the resources, global span and nimbleness to turn on a dime when an opportunity presents itself? Now that the demand is growing everywhere for solutions to environmental and social problems - a marketplace demand that is not only for more material things but also for a healthier and more sustainable world - corporations can become good citizens and make a profit doing so."
This echoes an idea that I've mentioned in Plastics News before; that most people in the plastics industry consider themselves to be environmentalists (a point that many people outside the industry don't understand). Plastics processing company managers believe they're doing the right thing for the the environment, running clean factories that make products that are easy to recycle and save energy. I think many will embrace the idea of sustainability. The real question is, will consumers?
May 13, 2008
Interesting new cereal packaging
How many times have you ripped open a bag of breakfast cereal and ended up with crunchy flakes all over the table -- or the floor? Sonoco Products Co. has a new packaging concept that solves that problem, according to this report from WBTW News in Florence, S.C.
"Changing out of the bag-n-box is something people have talked about for years, but people haven't been successful in making a conversion," said Sonoco market segment manager Derek Trader. The company's new product is called the Linearpak. It has a built-in barrier, a flip-top resealable lid, and no bag.
I've seen companies try to tackle this problem before, but breakfast cereal packaging hasn't really changed much over the past few decades. If a major cereal manufacturer tries out the Linearpak, would consumers pay a premium for this spill-resistant packaging? I'm skeptical.
May 8, 2008
Plastics and sports
Here are a few sports-related items that caught my eye today.
First, a story from a news Web site in England about a team using inflatable soccer goalposts. The goals were used in a match between Hackbridge Primary School and the Stanley Park Juniors.
The PVC iGoal inflates on the spot, has a built-in net, and looks pretty much like the "real" thing. In addition to portability, there's a safety advantage, too. A significant number of injuries occur every year when kids hang on portable soccer goals.
I wonder how the ball rebounds off of the inflatable goals, especially in comparison to wood and metal posts and crossbars.
Now if they could only make a pitch that's pre-mowed and lined. No, wait, they do! But that brings me to the second sports-related link of the day. In the past few weeks, I've seen a number of stories questioning the safety of artificial turf. This story from USA Today, for example, reported that a half-dozen artificial fields in New York and New Jersey have been closed because of concern about high levels of lead in the turf fibers. Now the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is investigating.
The closed fields include four New Jersey surfaces — in Jersey City, Newark, Hoboken and at the College of New Jersey in Ewing — as well as a high school field in Cicero, N.Y., that were found to contain high levels of lead. Another closed high school field in Liverpool, N.Y. is being tested.New Jersey health officials discovered the lead, used in pigment to color some fields, in the turf fibers. Kids and athletes could be exposed by inhaling or swallowing lead-laced turf fibers or "dust" kicked up by those playing on the fields, state epidemiologist Eddy Bresnitz says.
There have been no known cases of illness attributed to the fields, but at least four of the closed fields will be torn up and replaced with new artificial surfaces.
Other fields around the United States are being tested, and California is looking into whether signs should be posted near artificial turf fields warning that users could be exposed to toxic chemicals.
Artificial turf manufacturers, meanwhile, say the product is safe. They held a news conference yesterday to present findings from an "expert panel" that concluded, in part, that lead does not leach from synthetic turf, and the "amount of ingested turf required to pose a threat is absurdly unrealistic."
May 6, 2008
Get ready for the giant duck
Minneapolis TV station KARE-11 has the intriguing headline "What's the deal with the big duck," along with a photo of a giant yellow "toy" duck in front of the Minnesota State Capitol. The story is about an effort to gain support for a bill that would ban phthates from some children's products.
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Senator Sandy Rummel, DFL - White Bear Lake, is the chief author of the bill in the senate.She said she was elected to protect people from harmful things and who better to protect than Minnesota's children.
"We need to remove risk and there should be no acceptable risk especially when it comes to children," said Sen. Rummel.
"We live in a chemical world and some of those chemicals are unsafe and we know that."
I imagine we'll see this duck at other State Capitols around the country in coming weeks. If we can get a copy of the duck's itinerary, we'll know what state legislatures will be looking at phthalate bans this summer.
I wonder if it's also available for birthday parties?
May 5, 2008
Ground zero for bag bans
The small village of Modbury, England, was the flash point for the latest trend of communities trying to ban plastic bags, and Rebecca Hosking was the spark. The Washington Post's May 6 issue has an interview and feature about her role in the issue.
Rebecca Hosking's moment, when a happy English farm girl cried tears that changed her life, came on a speck of sugar-white beach in the middle of the Pacific Ocean."All you could smell was death," Hosking recalled, sitting snugly in a 600-year-old pub in her rainy home town, which has been transformed by her epiphany two years ago on Midway Atoll.
The beach on Midway, 1,300 miles northwest of Honolulu, was covered with thousands of dead albatrosses rotting in the tropical sun. In their split-open bellies, the BBC wildlife film producer said she saw the plastic that had killed them: cigarette lighters, pens, toys, pill bottles, knives and forks, golf balls and toothbrushes.
Powerful writing, and I'm sure other U.S. media will pick up this story, or decide to do their own interviews with Hosking. Get ready for another wave of anti-bag publicity.
May 2, 2008
Manufacturers cutting jobs
The U.S. stock market is gaining ground today after the Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy lost "only" 20,000 jobs in April -- experts had been predicting the figure would be closer to 85,000.
The service sector added jobs, but manufacturers cut 46,000, and construction companies laid off 61,000.
This is good news? Apparently investors think so -- they're taking it as a sign that the "economic downturn is beginning to abate," according to the New York Times story.
Scott Paul, executive director for the Alliance for American Manufacturing had this statement:
“We're in a jobs crisis. America lost another 46,000 manufacturing jobs last month. While Washington cheers the tax rebates, it continues to ignore the structural challenges that face manufacturing. Unless Congress and the Administration hold China accountable for its cheating -- which is the single greatest factor contributing to manufacturing's woes -- and get serious about making American manufacturing more competitive, these job losses will grow every month. The economy is top of mind for voters in Indiana, North Carolina, and all over America. It's time for all three presidential candidates to offer a vision for jobs and manufacturing in the future -- and it's crucial for Congress and the Administration to act now.”
Do plastics processors agree that China is "the single greatest factor contributing to manufacturing's woes"? I think rising energy and commodity prices are a bigger problem than China right now.
Bags against humanity?
A city councilman in Baltimore, Md., recently equated using plastic bags with the Nazi holocaust, and The Baltimore Examiner newspaper took him to task for the hyperbole in a May 1 editorial.
Having your heart in the right place is a nice quality. But it often makes for bad public policy, and in the case of Baltimore City Councilman James Kraft, D-1, the practice of putting his emotions first seems to have displaced his head.He equated using plastic bags with Nazi extermination tactics at a City Council meeting earlier this week.
“We don’t want to be criticized by future generations for not doing enough now as were those who dealt with the Germans then,” Kraft said.
So what follows? Should those who use plastic bags be charged with murder? Genocide?
The editorial goes on to suggest that instead of trying to ban plastic bags, Kraft try less drastic measures to improve the environment, such as asking the city of Baltimore to stop buying bottled water, requiring city employees to pay for their own parking to encourage them to use public transportation, and doing more to encourage plastic bag recycling.
April 29, 2008
BPA debate on the radio
The Diane Rehm radio show today (Tuesday, April 29) features a discussion on the bisphenol A safety issue. The show, hosted by WAMU in Washington and nationally broadcast on many National Public Radio stations, is scheduled for 10 a.m. (if you miss it live, you can check the Web site for a recording and a transcript later today).
Scheduled guests are:
Steven Hentges, American Chemistry Council, PhD, Senior Director Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group
Frederick vom Saal, reproductive scientist and professor, Division of Biological Sciences, College of Arts & Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia
Warren Foster, director, center for reproductive care and reproductive biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
John Bucher, associate director, National Toxicology Program, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Tony Clement, Health Minister, Canada.
Sounds like a heavyweight lineup.
