Several people have sent me links to this New York Times story this weekend, which happens to be the "most forwarded" story on the newspaper's Web site today. It's about Ireland's plastic bag tax, which was started in 2002 and pretty much kicked off the wave of plastic bag taxes and bans that seem to be sweeping the globe today.

The story explains how retailers and the public have adapted to the tax:

Within weeks, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Within a year, nearly everyone had bought reusable cloth bags, keeping them in offices and in the backs of cars. Plastic bags were not outlawed, but carrying them became socially unacceptable — on a par with wearing a fur coat or not cleaning up after one’s dog.

“When my roommate brings one in the flat it annoys the hell out of me,” said Edel Egan, a photographer, carrying groceries last week in a red backpack.

Ireland's experience is portrayed in a pretty positive light -- would Americans welcome a tax so openly?

The American Chemistry Council's Plastics Division has joined the bag ban battle in the United States in recent weeks, but after reading the Times' story, I have to wonder if they're fighting a losing cause.

Walter Wang, president and CEO of J.M. Manufacturing Co. Inc., the largest plastic pipe manufacturer in North America, is donating $1 million to UCLA to further Chinese American studies.

This story from the Los Angeles Times, starts with a pretty strong statement:

Headlines about dangerous toys from China dominated the news for months last year, prompting congressional hearings and consumer questions about the Asian manufacturing giant's product safety.

But Walter and Shirley Wang, Bel-Air residents with three children, asked a different question: Where were the headlines pointing out that some of the problems were caused not by shoddy Chinese manufacturing practices but by American design flaws?

According to the story, the donation also will fund a Web site, media and policy handbook, and a database of experts about Chinese American issues, which will educate the public and policymakers.

This is not a new issue for the Wang family. In 2000, they donated $1.5 million to help finance a PBS series, "Becoming American: The Chinese Experience." They're also donating thousands of dollars worth of plastic pipe to bring clean water to villages in Africa, and

They are currently involved with the Earth Institute to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars of plastic piping to bring clean water to destitute villagers in Africa.

Congratulations to Walter and Shirley Wang on their generosity, and best of luck with their relationship with UCLA.

Plastics could certainly benefit if governments around the world decided to really crack down on fuel efficiency. Auto makers would have to find ways to make vehicles lighter, and we could see an explosion of plastics in many applications. But that could be small potatoes compared to a proposal floated by Mark Moody-Stuart, the former chairman of oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell Group.

Moody-Stuart is actually suggesting that the European Union ban the sale of cars that get less than 35 miles per gallon!

Here are some excerpts from his column, courtesy of BBC News:

I am a great believer in both the power of consumer choice and the market. As we come to understand the consequences, we do tend to make greener choices.

But most of us will only make those choices if they deliver the convenience and utility to which we are used or aspire; and if they do not cost more (or we can afford the luxury of choice).

Consumer opinion and choice is important, but it will not do the trick on its own. Its importance is in encouraging companies to supply the market in more climate friendly ways, and most importantly in encouraging governments (for whom consumers vote) to take the steps needed.

He also calls for a carbon tax, and says that regulation is needed to bring about changes that are beneficial to society -- he compared his proposal to regulations that require vehicles to use unleaded gasoline, catalytic converters, seatbelts and airbags.

He specifically calls for banning gas guzzlers and steadily increasing the total efficiency of any vehicle sold.

You can buy the roomiest, vroomiest car, as long as it meets the efficiency standard.

My wife and I have driven a hybrid since 2001 and it is a beautiful and comfortable piece of engineering, silent and will do 100mph (we tried it, but not in England!).

That may not be the best technology - the market will find out. But we must constrain the market in an efficiency framework.

To achieve the same through taxation would mean fuel taxes at levels which would play havoc with industry, countryside dwellers and the poor who need transport.

What do you think? It's fine to argue in favor of consumer choice. But at the same time, when I see gas prices rise above $3 per gallon, I'm reminded that prices are governed by the laws of supply and demand. If the millions of people driving gas guzzlers had purchased fuel efficient cars instead, demand -- and prices -- would be lower. When I'm paying $20 and getting less than half a tank of gas, Moody-Stuart's proposal is tempting indeed.

And plastics would definitely benefit. Imagine, for example, how quickly the market for nanocomposites would grow if automakers had to take a serious look at finding lightweight alternatives for all that sheet metal?

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley is sticking up for plastic bags. Well, sort of.

In this story from the Chicago Sun-Times, Daley argues that the City Council should go slow in its effort to regulate plastic bags.

“You can’t outlaw plastic bags overnight,” Daley said.

“Are we all going to show up in front of the Sun-Times and Tribune building and say, ‘Here’s your plastic bags. You have to take them back?’ Remember, it’s you who’s doing it. You wrap your newspapers in plastic. You should take them back, right? You have a responsibility.”

The mayor added, “Everybody’s against plastic. But let’s think about all the industries it has to do with. I’d rather see the industries do it themselves, truthfully. Not all of the sudden, [say] they want a fine. They want us to sue you. Let’s work this out. [Let’s have] a voluntary approach.”

Is this the same Mayor Daley who slapped a tax on PET water bottles last year? Yep.

Biopolymers are one of the hottest buzzwords in plastics these days, and that means they're going to get attention from politicians. The latest to join the party: Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who mentioned them as part of a $1.7 billion economic stimulus package in his "State of the State" message today.

Here's the relevant part:

Now here’s what we’re going to do with those resources and how we’re going to create jobs.

We will invest 250 million dollars in the advanced and renewable energy economy, including solar, wind and clean coal.

We will invest 150 million dollars in our state’s infrastructure to help create a seamless network of roads, rails, and ports to support our logistics and distribution industry.

We will invest 100 million dollars in bioproducts that use renewable sources instead of petroleum to create plastics and other products.

I'm always skeptical when politicians start talking about where they're going to invest taxpayer dollars. Will they pick the right projects? How do they decide -- and do they have a better record of picking winners than the free market? If Strickland can convince the state legislature to go along with his plan, I guess we'll find out.

Which plastics companies do you think will get in line for a share of that $100 million pot?

Congratulations to Heritage Plastics Central Inc., which on Feb. 6 was named Large Business of the Year by the Weatherford, Texas, Economic Development Authority and Weatherford Chamber of Commerce.

Heritage Plastics is a PVC pipe extruder that our staff reporter Frank Esposito recently featured in our "Celebrating a Century of Plastics" special report. The company also has plants in Pasadena, Texas; Tampa, Fla., and Carrollton, Ohio.

West Virginia is the latest state to consider banning plastic grocery bags, according to this story from the Charleston, W. Va., Daily Mail.

According to the story, a bill introduced by four delegates would require retailers to phase out plastic bags by 2011, replacing them with compostable bags, mandating recycling bins and offering consumers reusable bags.

The lead sponsor, Delegate Ralph Rodighiero, D-Logan, said he introduced the bill because plastic bags have become quite the public eyesore, cluttering riverbanks and roadways.

"We're trying to revive our area," Rodighiero said. "We've got the Hatfield-McCoy Trail, a new Wal-mart, and we're trying to build. People are coming in from out-of-state to see our beautiful area, and the last thing they need to observe are white and blue plastic bags along the bank."

These bag bans are really gaining momentum. It will be interesting to see how many actually are adopted this year, and whether they are a fad or they keep popping up in the future.

I've got two nice stories to share this week about how Plastics News benefitted by cooperating with other Crain publications.

The first really started a week ago, on Feb. 1. Automotive News learned late in the day that Plastech Engineered Products Inc., the No. 6 injection molder in our ranking, had filed for Chapter 11. The news came too late for PN and AN deadlines (although we already had an AN story on Plastech's problems on Page 3 of our Feb. 4 issue).

AN posted a story about the bankruptcy on its Web site late in the evening, and Phil Nussel, their special projects editor, emailed copies to me and to Crain's Detroit Business. I quickly plasticized it a bit and posted it on our site about 10 p.m. By sharing their scoop with us, I believe we beat the Wall Street Journal and the Detroit dailies with the news. I was pleased to see that many of our readers discovered the story over the weekend -- by Monday it had climbed near the top of both our "most emailed" and "most popular" story lists. (it's still in the top 3 on both lists for the past 30 days).

But the cooperation was just beginning. On Monday, AN, CDB and PN started to work together on follow-up coverage, sharing sources and information on how Plastech's bankruptcy shut down some Chrysler assembly plants, and then on how the companies reached an agreement that allowed Chrysler to restart production. We posted several follow-up stories throughout the week.

On Thursday, Rhoda Miel, our Detroit-based staff reporter, finished a story of her own on how other molders might get a chance to bid on Plastech's Chrysler work, and the many issues involved. Rhoda told AN about the story, and they were interested, so we shared the story on Thursday night. Both PN and AN posted it on our Web sites this morning. Until a few minutes ago, it was the lead story (top-right position) on AN's Web site, and if you click through you'll see Rhoda's byline, and full credit to Plastics News.

The second story of cooperation involves the ongoing work that we've been doing with our Plastics News Global Group sister papers Plastics & Rubber Weekly and European Plastics News on the Sumitomo-Demag acquisition story. You'll recall that PN and our Croydon, England, friends broke this news back in January, days in advance of published reports in Japan and Europe. David Vink (EPN's senior editor in Dusseldorf, Germany), Steve Toloken (our staff reporter in Guangzhou, China) and Bill Bregar (our senior reporter in Akron, Ohio) worked together on that story.

We've continued to track the story, and today it paid off with a big scoop: Steve confirmed with Sumitomo that its board of directors had signed a deal to buy Demag. Sumitomo provided Steve with a lot of detail, but declined comment.

As soon as we had the confirmation, we brought David Vink into the loop. We emailed Sumitomo's information to him, and I called to see if he could quickly try to reach Demag officials before the end of the business day in Europe.

David quickly reached Demag CEO Klaus Erkes and got some excellent comments -- far better than the "no comment" that we were half-expecting. David forwarded the comments to Steve, who folded them into his story, and we ended up with a double-byline story on the top of Page 1 in our Feb. 11 issue, and on our Web site. I believe that, once again, we are first in the world with this story.

Steve and Rhoda did a great job working with their Crain colleagues, especially David Vink and Phil Nussel, on these big stories. I hope our readers appreciate their efforts. We love giving our readers the opportunity to be first in the world to learn about these big plastics-related stories. As Robert Grace, our editor and associate publisher, said today, these examples underscore the value of Crain's global news network, drawing on the expertise of our staff reporters in Guangzhou, Dusseldorf, Detroit and Akron.

And I would also like to thank Ron Shinn, who suggested that I share the "story behind the stories" with our blog readers.

What's better for the environment, using less resin to make a PET bottle, or using more material but incorporating recycled plastic into the container? This is one of those questions where the answer depends on your priorities.

Today scienceline.org, a student-run webzine published by the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program at New York University, takes a stab at the question. The statistics that the students cite are interesting, and they come up with what appears to be a pretty thoughtful conclusion.

First, it's nice to see that they actually look at materials pricing, which is an important consideration for plastics processors and their customers. They also consider landfill tipping costs, since there is a hidden cost to handle all of the PET bottles that aren't recycled, too.

The conclusion: although landfilling used PET bottles is cheaper in the short run, it is wasteful (a half a billion dollars worth of PET bottles were sent to landfills in 2005, acccording to the Container Recycling Institute), especially with virgin resin prices rising. So they acknowledge that using less virgin resin, by making lighter bottles, is a priority, as well as making an effort to use recycled material, too.

Mardi Gras, like Cher's comeback tours, are annual events that muddy up my daily searches for plastics-related news. The problem with Cher, obviously, is that every story written about her since 1985 has a prominent mention of plastic surgery.

With Mardi Gras, the problem is the fascination that some sectors of the news media have with those cheap plastic beads.

Let's ignore why they focus on the beads and consider this important question: can the beads be recycled? This story, from the New Iberia, La., newspaper The Daily Iberian, answers the question:

Residents wanting to donate their Mardi Gras collectibles might check with the art departments at the area schools. Bobby Guidry at Allied Waste said that in the past he has heard of art departments accepting beads for upcoming projects. However, one thing residents cannot do with all those beads is fill up their recycling bins.

“While they are plastic, they are considered contaminated because of the string that holds them together,” Guidry said.

That makes sense to me, although I'm sure some imaginative plastic lumber maker could extrude a very colorful park bench or picnic table out of a waste stream of mixed colorful beads. Anyone want to give it a try?

The Iberian story has some other great alternatives to throwing the beads away. It points out that, at least locally, Goodwill takes used beads all year long, sorts them and sells them back to the public. That sounds like a very good idea.

Can you live a day without plastics? That's the premise of a story in the Big Bear Lake, Calif., Grizzly, which I'm sure many Plastics News readers will appreciate. Here's an excerpt:

Ellen likes to think she's doing her part to lessen America’s dependence on foreign oil. She owns a hybrid car, takes her plastic bottles and cans to Big Bear Disposal and combines errands in one trip so she uses less gasoline.

But she thinks she can do more. She comes up with an idea to go without oil for 24 hours. She's excited about her oil-free experiment, at least until she realizes there's a foot of snow on the ground and it's 12 degrees outside. But Ellen figures her hybrid car can be an exception to the experiment. After all she has errands to run for the family.

The night before her project, Ellen goes through her closet to decide what to wear on the big day. A frown forms as she examines the labels -- acrylic, faux fur, micro fibers, nylon, nytril, olefin, polyester, polypropylene, spandex. She's not even sure about clothing made from natural fibers. The dyes may be petroleum based. The zippers and buttons certainly are.

This is going to be harder than she first thought.

Ellen decides she has to be able to wear clothes. It won't do to run errands in her birthday suit.

After a restless night, Ellen finally gets to sleep. But Ellen, who unplugged her clock because most appliances including clocks are plastic, oversleeps. Usually, when someone sleeps late, a cup of coffee is in order. Ellen starts the coffee maker then suddenly remembers that thing about plastic. She hears Homer Simpson's signature "d'oh" ringing in her head. No coffee for Ellen.

She also decides to skip breakfast. The orange juice is in a plastic jug. The stove, while natural gas, has plastic components, and the spatula Ellen uses to scramble eggs is, well, plastic.

There's another dilemma in the bathroom. The shampoo may include petroleum-based detergent, but even if it doesn't, the bottle is plastic. The soap Ellen wants to use is pure, but the packaging includes plastic. She groans in frustration as she has a soapless shower then almost slips on the wet tile because she didn't close the plastic shower curtain.

Ellen uses her finger to brush her teeth because the toothbrush is made from synthetic materials. She hopes her morning breath isn't too bad and vows to cover her mouth with her hand when she talking during the day.

There's more, of course. Ellen discovers she can't wear cosmetics, can't buy many products at the grocery store, can't use a credit card or write a check with a pen, can't read her mail, can't do chores, can't relax in front of the TV ... well, you get the picture.

It's an interesting idea for a column, and it helps to put all the talk about banning plastics into perspective. There's a lot more to the plastics industry than grocery bags and carry-out food containers, and most people aren't willing to give them all up.

Here's a story I didn't believe when I first read it: a Canadian inventor who calls himself Mr. Widget wants to build a rocket out of pop bottles that he can launch into orbit.

I guess I've been missing out, because I'd never seen a rocket made from 2-liter PET bottles fly through the sky. But judging by the number of related videos on YouTube, quite a few people do this sort of thing all the time. Apparently it's simple enough for a kid to build, and you can launch it in your own back yard. It looks like fun.

Ken Schellenberg, the chief executive officer of AntiGravity Research Corp. in Chilliwack, British Columbia, wants to take the concept to new heights. He already owns the current altitude record for a pop-bottle rocket (1,243 feet, according to this story on his Web site). Now he is developing a rocket that he hopes can orbit the earth. The story's not specific, but it mentions that the model he's currently working on could reach an altitute of about 5 km., which would certainly stay aloft for a very long time, although it's debatable whether you could say it's actually "in orbit."

Schellenberg sells kits for the public to make their own pop-bottle rockets, and he says they make great tools for physics teachers. I also found a fun section of the NASA Web site with information about bottle rockets, including instructions on how to make your own.

GE Plastics skipped exhibiting at NPE 2006, but it looks like the company will be back again next year.

Sabic Innovative Plastics, the company that bought GE Plastics last year, will be exhbiting at NPE 2009, according to this nugget posted today by Bob Martino on the NPE blog:

A grand old name has returned to NPE in a new guise. Sabic Innovative Plastics, the new identity of GE Plastics, has taken a 12,000 sq.ft. booth in the new McCormick West hall. In May of 2007, General Electric Company sold the plastics business to Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC). GE was one of the original exhibitors at the first NPE in 1946 and was missing from NPE for the first time in 2006. But with Sabic the company’s globally supplied range of engineering thermoplastics will be back in the show.

For your background and reading pleasure, here's a story I wrote in October 2006 explaining how GE Plastics was working to reach customers as an alternative to NPE.

It will be interesting to see if more resin companies decide to come back to big plastics trade shows like NPE -- if not next year, then in 2012. Some of the resin companies that have skipped NPE in recent years still have big exhibits at the K fair in Germany and Chinaplas. If there's value in exhibiting at those shows, why not in North America?

Wisconsin is the newest state to debate a ban on plastic grocery bags, according to this story from the Madison, Wis., The Capital Times. The bill was introduced by two Democratic state legislators, Mark Pocan, a represenative from Madison, and Bob Jauch, a senator from Poplar.

Like some other bag-ban proposals around the county, their bill would ban conventional plastic bags, but allow biodegradable bags.

The story quotes Brandon Scholz of the Wisconsin Grocers Association saying that biodegradable bags are too expensive, and that consumers have not been pushing for a ban. He also noted that many retailers collect plastic bags for recycling.

"You're finding more and more grocery stores providing receptacles for their customers to bring the bags back," he said. "And there is a market for those bags."

Pocan, one of the bill sponsors, made one point in the story that is a more than a bit simplistic. The story attributes this information to him:

... because plastic bags are made with petroleum, they increase the United States' reliance on foreign crude oil, Pocan said. Biodegradable bags, in contrast, are made with the starch from corn and other agricultural products.

In North America, most polyethylene is made from natural gas, not oil. And agricultural products may come from sunshine and rainbows, but it takes a lot of energy to harvest the crops and turn them into starch-based resins -- by some measures, more energy than is used to make conventional plastics.

What happens to chemical plants when they finally shut down for good? In Sarnia, Ontario, the plan is to tear down everything and, in a few years, turn a former Dow Chemical Co. site into wetlands.

That's according to this story from The Observer newspaper, which notes that demolition of the 65-year-old polyethylene and polystyrene plant will begin in a few months, even though some production will continue until April 2009. The report quotes Catherine Creber, Dow's site closure leader, who spoke yesterday to the local Golden 'K' Kiwanis Club.

After the property has been cleared, it will be maintained in a natural state, at least until it's sold, she said.

"If it's not sold, we'll put in long grasses, wildflowers and trees," she said. "It's our intention that it will be esthetically pleasing. When you drive over the overpass, you won't see a mess."

I live near a chemical plant that has been cleaned up and reclaimed, the PPG Lime Lakes plant in Barberton, Ohio. It's amazing how a manufacturing site can disappear and return to a natural state in such a short period of time.

Everyone in the plastics industry seems to want to be "green" these days, but Berry Plastics Corp. is trying a different color: pink.

That's because pink is the color that denotes breast cancer awareness, and Evansville, Ind.-based Berry is signing on to help the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization, the world's largest breast cancer organization.

Berry has introduced a new brand, called "i Commit," and the first product will be a trash bag. From Feb. 1 through July 31, Berry will donate 25 cents for each specially marked package of "i Commit" bags sold, with a minimum guaranteed donation of $100,000.

“With i Commit, one of the most commonly used consumer items – trash bags – has the potential to make a dramatic difference in the fight against breast cancer,” said Ira Boots, chairman and CEO, Berry Plastics Corp. “We couldn’t ask for a more worthy first partner for the i Commit program than Susan G. Komen for the Cure.”

“We at Berry Plastics are in a position to make a significant difference for charities that are working hard to make a difference in the world,” Boots said. “Our philosophy is to be engaged in causes that our customers care about and causes that support people helping themselves.”

Congratulations to Berry for participating in this worthy cause.

I've seen a lot of interesting deer stands through the years, but none like this one, made from an old plastic portable toilet. Believe it or not, this isn't a one-of-a-kind stand. McDonald Sanitation Services LLC in Thibodaux, La., regularly sells its old toilets to deer hunters, according to this Associated Press story.

The company charges 50 bucks each for the old porta-potties, which is a lot cheaper than a wooden deer stand. The old john enclosures are made from green plastic, which means the hunters don't have to repaint them.

Realtree.com, a Web site that sells hunting and outdoor equipment, has a fun explanation for the deer stands:

Man, this is one that Jeff Foxworthy is going to be all over!

Next time you find yourself inside one of those construction-site porta-johns just might be thinking about Melinda Rodrigue, owner of McDonald Sanitation Services. And you’ll likely be thinking about peeking out of the john’s window at a giant 10-pointer. That’s right, for the last three years, the Thibodaux, Louisiana entrepreneur has been selling stripped-down and sanitized portable toilets to ambitious deer hunters---to be used as water-resistant deer blinds and deer stands.

Here’s how things shake out. Melinda’s business rents out some 1,100 porta-john and several each year become damaged to a point they become cost-prohibitive to repair. Melinda doesn’t take much credit for this somewhat slippery scheme though. The previous owner of McDonald Sanitation saw a demand for johns so he filled it! Rodrigue didn’t want to upset the apple cart so she continues revamping the bad bowls to sell to “forward-thinking” deer hunters.

To make the crappers hunt-ready, the tanks are removed from the toilets, and on some the ventilation pipe and outlet hole have been removed and sealed. The door, walls and floor remain intact. Toilets are also pressure-washed and cleaned with hospital-grade disinfectant and sometimes bleach. Gosh, you can’t make this stuff up!

Getting your own porta-stand might be a tough deal. According to Rodrigue, “At $50 a pop, the 50- to 60-pound structures have attracted the attention of more than a few local hunters, as the cost to build a wood stand is much higher.”

She’s sold only 15 of her stands to date, but Realtree has learned that that has more to do with the availability of beyond-repair johns than hunter demand. We’ve also heard whispers that Jeff Foxworthy is looking into a licensing agreement with McDonald Sanitation Services to promote and possibly ‘cosmetically redesign’ (read camouflage) the next batch of bowls. (Disclaimer: No whispers were really heard) --- Nino Bosaz

Well, I'm glad they're sanitizing those toilets, although I wonder if those sensitive deer noses can still pick up the scent!

Let's call them plastic bags for newspapers that don't want to be hypocritical.

GP Plastics Corp. introduced a new line of biodegradable newspaper bags at the Newspaper Association of America's Marketing Conference, being held this week in Orlando, Fla.

I predict these will be a big hit -- but only if the newspaper's marketing people are reading their own editorial pages. Why? Because I see lots of newspapers giving favorable coverage to proposals to bag or tax plastic grocery bags.

If papers are going to push for groceries to use degradable bags, then they'd better voluntarily start doing the same thing themselves, or else they'll be branded as hypocrites.

What do you think? Will newspapers, many of them already concerned about shrinking profit margins, switch to more expensive degradable plastic carrier bags?

It looks like 2007 may be remembered as the year that the mainstream media discovered China -- specifically, issues about manufacturing and safety in China.

The concept dawned on me when I read this story from Editor & Publisher, a journal that covers the newspaper industry. The story highlights the leading candidates for the annual Pulitizer Prizes, the top award for newspaper journalists.

The headline sums up the biggest news stories of last year in just a few words: "Handicapping The Pulitzers: Walter Reed? Virginia Tech? China? And Likely Some Surprises."

Here's what the story has to say about the news story candidates that have a Chinese connection:

Several New York Times projects have received nods and are likely contenders in the national, investigative or explanatory categories. Walt Bogdanich and Jane Hooker are Goldsmith Prize and Selden Ring finalists for "A Toxic Pipeline," their report on diethylene glycol, a toxin imported from China for use in anti-freeze that is found to be suspected of killing hundreds around the Globe. ...

Also re:China was Shai Oster of The Wall Street Journal's reporting on China's Three Gorges Dam construction, a Polk award winner that could see success as a Pulitzer foreign news winner, explanatory contender or investigative honoree. Oster looked at the impact of the project on local environmental issues.

Another China angle came from the Chicago Tribune, with its revelations about injuries and death resulting from unregulated products imported from China, ranging from dangerous cribs to lead-tainted toys. That series already has won a Polk Award and gotten Selden Ring finalist consideration, as well as sparking a nationwide review of the problem.

In a related story, the Salt Lake Tribune has been given a Shorenstein finalist spot for its coverage of the dangers in Chinese factories of carcinogens used in making many of the recalled products.

In many ways, those few paragraphs seem to sum up pretty well the prevailing attitude that Americans have toward China. It's a land of toxins and danger. Our homes may be full of made-in-China products, but we look at them suspiciously.

It's no wonder that J-M Manufacturing Co. Inc.'s Walter Wang is worried about how the media portrays China.

Pulitzer Prizes have a history of focusing public -- and legislative -- attention on issues, so don't be surprised if Washington takes a close look at Chinese manufacturing and safety issues in coming months.

Don't think so? Keep in mind that last year, the Los Angeles Times won a Pulitzer for its "Altered Oceans" series, and suddenly the marine debris issue gained huge prominence in California, prompting plastic bag bans all over the country.

German magazine Der Spiegel's English-language Web site has an interesting story today about how the McDonald's fast-food chain changed the design of its McFlurry dessert container in order to make it hedgehog-friendly. And I couldn't resist doing a blog item on the topic today, since I'd never seen a hedgehog before. Check the link for a neat photo of one of the little guys.

The story is a bit puzzling. The premise is that McDonald's redesigned the convex plastic lids to make them safe for hedgehogs. The story notes that a group called Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND), touted as the nation's largest environmental group, has received reports of between 50 and 100 hedgehogs getting trapped in McFlurry packaging during the last two years alone.

"There hasn't been a scientific study on the matter, but anyone who has driven down the autobahn and seen all the litter can understand why these discarded McFlurry cups would be a hazard for Hedgehogs," Rolf Bahrens, who works for BUND in the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "People have called us, reporting many cases where they found a hedgehog that had crawled into one of these cups and died of starvation."

In the end, though, McDonald's solved the problem by introducing a new hedgehog-friendly package to its outlets in Germany -- one it had already developed in the United Kingdom, where it ran into exactly the same problem back in 2006!

McDonald's said the new small-mouthed lids should be available throughout Germany soon.

Wouldn't it have made sense to roll out this new package design everywhere hedgehogs are found, rather than waiting for someone to complain?

Just for fun, here's a story from WXII TV in Winston-Salem, N.C., about a movie being filmed in Mount Airy, N.C., hometown of Andy Griffith. Where's the plastics angle? It's the movie!

According to director Rob Connolly, it's a "quirky comedy about a disenchanted worker named Bob Underwood, who works in a factory that makes plastic lawn ornament deer."

Now I've been to a real factory that makes plastic deer, so I'm intrigued by the topic. Unfortunately, I don't live in North Carolina, because right now Connolly is looking for extras to be in the movie.

Sounds like fun. Are there any plastics industry workers in the vicinity of Mount Airy who'd like to give an air of realism to Connolly's comedy? If so, check out the TV station link for more information.