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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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."

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.

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?

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?

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.

You might think that Wisconsin would have no trouble recycling dairy containers of all types. But you'd be wrong. The city of Madison, Wis., no longer wants certain plastic containers in its curbside bins, including yogurt, ice cream and whipped butter, because they say no recyclerwants them.

City recycling coordinator George Dreckmann told The Capital Times that the market for plastic bottles is strong, but not for other types of containers.

"We are sorry to announce this change," Dreckmann said. "We have no end users for old dairy tubs so we can't recycle them any longer."

I'm surprised that Madison ever collected these seldom-recycled containers, which might be used in plastic lumber.

This development has me thinking: Plastic bags are another important low-cost feedstock for plastic lumber makers. If bag makers are counting on lumber extruders to handle a big influx of grocery bags, I hope the lumber makers are ready to handle the increased volume. It would be a public relations nightmare to put a lot of bag recycling programs in place, and then find that the market has collapsed or that all the bags end up getting shipped to overseas recyclers.

The Westerly, R.I., Sun newspaper has a nice feature today on the National Plastics Center's PlastiVan program.

The story is the result of a PlastiVan visit to a local middle school.

As students attempted to put a skewer through an inflated balloon without popping it at Pawcatuck Middle School, there were some loud bangs but also sounds of excited success.

"That is so cool," one student called out.

How did that work?

It works by first putting hand lotion on the skewer, and first entering the strongest part of the balloon near the not -- an area where moving one of the polymer chains that make up the plastic balloon does not mean it deflates but there are enough to take its place after the skewer enters.

That was one of the many questions answered when the National Plastics Center brought its PlastiVan lab to school. The center will also visit Mystic Middle School and Westerly Middle School.

These visits were sponsored by extrusion machinery supplier Davis-Standard LLC, according to the story. Sandy Whewell, the company's marketing coordinator, told the paper that the company plans to sponsor annual PlastiVan visits to local schools.

"We would like to introduce students to the importance of plastics and maybe inspire a career in plastics or engineering," Whewell said.

Hats off to Davis-Standard, and to all the PlastiVan sponsors, for their role in bringing this program to the schools.

You have to love designers. Who else would write something like this:

There's something to be said for the clever tricks designers use to hide parting lines from injection molding, but we loves us some rotation molding. Elegant, expensive and with invariably sexy results, rotomolding gives you lightweight pieces with angles and shapes you just can't get any other way.

Elegant, sexy rotomolding? I'm guessing those are words that have never before been used in the same sentence. (And I'm sure they meant to say inexpensive, not expensive).

That's from the Core77.com design blog. Check out this link for more information, some pretty cool photos, and links.

Elizabeth Royte, a noted science and environmental author, has a new book, "Bottlemania: How Water Went On Sale And Why We Bought It," that's going to be in the news in the next few weeks. Here's a link to a review from the Huffington Post, and an excerpt from the book, courtesy of alternet.org.

From the excerpt, it is clear that Royte is a good writer. She weaves facts and humor together in an entertaining style:

Like iPods and cell phones, bottled water is private, portable, and individual. It's factory- sealed and untouched by human hands-a far cry from the public water fountain. (Fiji exploits this subliminal germophobia with its slogan "Untouched by Man," as does a company called Ice Rocks that sells "hygienic ice cubes"-springwater hermetically packaged in disposable plastic.) Somehow, we've become a nation obsessed with hygiene and sterility. Never, outside of an epidemic, have we been more afraid of our own bodies. Supermarkets provide antibacterial wipes for shopping cart handles. Passengers bring their own linens to cover airline pillows. Supermarkets wrap ears of corn in plastic: corn still in its husk! (The downside, besides mountains of waste, is the development of super-resistant bacteria immune to most of the commonly used antibiotics.)

There's also a fun story about how she didn't take a taste of Poland Spring water when she visited Tom Brennan, natural resources manager for Nestle Waters North America, in a visit to Hollis, Maine, because Royte was afraid she'd like it more than the tap water she brought to the interview.

Watch for more coverage of "Bottlemania," and an accompanying new wave of TV and new reports critical of the bottled water sector.

The Prensa Latina state news agency in Cuba is reporting that Cuba will produce more than 14,000 homes per year, mostly from PVC, thanks to a joint project with Venezuela.

The project will ease a housing shortage in Cuba, according to another report.

Cuba calls the homes "Petrocasas," and says it will build about 40 of the 753-square-foot homes daily. The manufacturing equipment to make the components (one would assume extrusion lines, although the story does not say) will be installed in September.

About 75 percent of each structure will be made of PVC, according to the Prensa Latina report. It will take eight working days to build each one, and officials expect them to last about 50 years.

Cuba plans to start producing its own PVC resin in 3-4 years, according to the Prensa Latina report.

Considering the problems that PVC extruders in North America are experiencing right now, it's too bad that the Cubans can't buy housing components from suppliers in the U.S. and Canada, instead.

Bob Simpson, a former executive at Milacron Inc. and Siegel-Robert Automotive Inc., is preparing for a new career as a trade association president.

Simpson will become president of the Association For Manufacturing Technology, on Oct. 7, according to a recent news release from the McLean, Va., group. He will join the association on June 2 and work during a transition period with current President John B. Byrd III, who will retire after five years at AMT.

AMT, formerly the National Machine Tool Builders' Association, owns and sponsors the big International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS), touted as "one of the world's largest industrial expositions," and held every even-numbered year in Chicago's McCormick Place.

The towns of Telluride and Aspen, Colo., are taking a different approach to the plastic bag issue. Instead of proposing taxes or bans, they've set up a friendly competition to try to get residents to use reusable bags instead of plastics grocery bags.

The Telluride Watch newspaper has a story about "The Great Plastics Bag Reduction Challenge." Starting Saturday, groceries in both towns will donate 5 cents to their town's Green Fund every time a reusable bag is used or purchased until July 6.

Whichever town raises the most money per capita will win two solar monitor sets from the runner-up for use in the public schools. Plus have bragging rights over the other, of course.

The idea got its start a few months ago when SMA partnered with The New Community Coalition to initiate a plastic bag reduction campaign in Telluride and Mountain Village. The goal was to raise awareness for the environmental and social cost of the single-use plastic bag and to promote a "European" approach to shopping in which people would shop with reusable bags rather than rely on paper or plastic to get their goods home.

Sounds easy enough, but strictly volunteer efforts at reducing the use of plastic bags are ineffective, according to [Sheep Mountain Alliance project coordinator David] Allen.

But rather than lobby for a plastic bag fee or tax like one in Ireland that successfully reduced plastic bag consumption by 90 percent, or an ordinance banning the bags outright as was passed last year in San Francisco, SMA tried to think up a way to give the community a positive, not punitive, motivation to voluntarily embrace the reusable bag.

"We want to disprove all the statistics that say that voluntary reduction efforts don't work," he said.

Sounds like a good idea. Consumers who prefer plastic -- including lots of folks with dogs, I'm sure -- can continue to use "disposable" bags.

I've got one suggestion for any community considering copying this idea. How about giving credit to people who are offered a bag but turn it down? Or for taking a batch of bags back to the store to be recycled?

The blogosphere is expanding, and I continue to discover plastics-related sites that are worth visiting.

"Rise Above Plastics" is a blog connected to the Malibu, Calif.-based Surfrider Foundation, that aims to be "a starting point for raising awareness of the problems that plastic brings to our oceans." In it's "Purpose" section, it goes on:

Every bit of plastic that was ever produced still exists today, and much if it ends up in the ocean. RAP endeavors to spur you to actions-at home, at the store, at city hall. Each of us depends on plastic in some form every day, but much if it is a convenience choice, a decision that can easily be swayed toward the proper environmental path, requiring no more effort on your part.

("Every bit ... still exists today"? How much of an exaggeration is that?)

The blog started in September, and lately it has been very active. Typical posts are links to newspaper and magazine stories about plastics marine debris, as well as links to interested groups like the Algalita Marine Research Foundation.

One interesting post, from May 21, tackled a question I've heard: Is there a way to clean up the garbage patches in the Pacific Ocean?

At tonight's meeting of Surfrider Foundation San Diego County Chapter, I showed a copy of the graphic from the Toronto Globe and Mail depicting the garbage patches in the Pacific Ocean. At least one person asked "Isn't there some way we can clean this up?" And, later during our break and discussion period, I was asked why I thought it the trash could not be picked up. I replied "Because of the enormity of it all," explaining that these patches were so large and plastics of varying sizes are spread throughout the patches at depths up to 10 meters. Anna Cummins, Eduction Advisor of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, had a guest blog post in the LA Times just the other day and wrote,

• The garbage does indeed exist. HOWEVER it is not a "patch" of garbage, nor a trash island. It's more like a huge bowl of dilute plastic soup, from California to Japan.
• We can't clean it up, net it away, or sieve it out. It's an area twice the size of the United States, and the debris is too spread out. Imagine a handful of plastic cornflakes sprinkled over a football field. Now imagine 9 million football fields in the Pacific Ocean.

Surfriders Foundation has another plastics-related blog, on its main Web site, simply titled Surfriders Blog. This one touches on a wider variety of topics, but marine debris is often featured, as well as efforts to ban plastic products.

Completely off the subject of marine debris, the NPE trade show blog continues to generate new content. Well-known plastics industry PR whiz Bob Martino is the author, and today he posted a fun item on the city of Chicago, which was named U.S. City of the Year by Fast Company magazine. The NPE blog should be a good resource to help showgoers make the most of NPE 2009.

After all, it's just 13 months away...

Nadine Robinson, a columnist for The Sault Star in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, has brilliantly come up with a couple of words for "fear of plastics," a problem that some bloggers, emailers and even news media professionals seem to be experiencing.

Her suggestions: plastiphobia and plastipanic.

Robinson is a lecturer at Algoma University College and has a blog of her own called The Ink. She tackled the "fear of plastics" topic in a column today that ties together recent headlines about BPA with those forwarded "beware of plastics" emails that we've all seen.

She starts:

The Oxford English Dictionary has no word for fear of plastics. In light of recent headlines, I'd like to coin plastiphobia or plastipanic, because I know I'm not alone in questioning the predominance and safety of some plastics in our world.

It may have started with all of the product recalls for plastic toys covered in lead paint, then was reinforced by a series of forwarded e-mails saying not to cook in plastics or freeze water bottles due to cancer-causing dioxins (not true - read on).

I've definitely become more conscious of the amount of plastic packaging that is not recyclable and ending up in our landfills. Perhaps the last plastic drinking straw that broke my back was April 18, 2008, when bisphenol A (BPA) was labeled a chemical of concern by the government, leaving me staring at my Nalgene bottle skeptically.

Before plastics are exiled from my kitchen, I did further research.

Robinson takes a pretty balanced approach with the rest of the column, although it's clear that she counts herself in the group of citizens who is concerned about plastics safety.

Last year we celebrated the 100th anniversary of plastics, which got its start when Leo Baekeland filed his famous “heat and pressure” patent for phenol formaldehyde on July 13, 1907.

This year, we must note the somewhat creepy side of the Baekeland family history, with the limited U.S. release this weekend of "Savage Grace." The movie stars Stephen Dillane as plastics heir Brooks Baekeland; Julianne Moore as his wife, Barbara; and Eddie Redmayne as their son, Tony.

Here's the plot, summed up in 20 words thanks to Wikipedia:

The story is based on the Baekeland family and the dysfunctional, incestuous relationship between Antony Baekeland and Barbara Daly Baekeland.

Hmm. I think I'll pass. Even "Sex in the City" has got to be better.

I had more fun with this post when I imagined that Jim Cramer delivered it by screaming at me from my TV.

Cramer today picked Owens-Illinois Inc. stock as a "buy" on the CNBC "Stop Trading!' segment. He gave a pretty anti-plastics reason for the selection. O-I makes glass bottles, and Cramer likes glass a lot more than plastics.

"I have to emphasize to people," Cramer said, "at a certain point we're going to come around. ... Glass doesn't have toxins.

"Everybody else uses glass around the globe. You can recycle it 30 times," Cramer said. He predicted that consumers will turn to glass instead of plastic.

I assume he knows that glass is also heavy, which makes it costlier to transport, and that it uses more energy to create than plastics. Those would seem to be very important considerations with oil near $130 per barrel.

And someone might want to talk to him about that plastics=toxins theory.

It looks like sailing across the Pacific Ocean in a craft made of plastic bottles isn't an original idea after all.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the upcoming voyage of The Plastiki, a boat made of post-consumer plastic bottles that is preparing to make a San Francisco-to-Australia voyage.

Today I'll share news of a similar trip, from Hermosa Beach, Calif., to Hawaii, by a sailboat called Junk.

Junk, which is made from 15,000 plastic bottles, is scheduled to set sail on Sunday. The trip's aim is to "raise awareness about plastic debris fouling our oceans," according to the project's blog.

If the marine debris issue isn't on your radar now, I think it's going to be very soon.

Junk is part of the Algalita Marine Foundation's "Message in a Bottle" project, all aimed at problems associated with plastic debris.

The Los Angeles Times Emerald City blog has a post today on the subject of corporate sponsorships of "green" events, and much of the focus is on PET bottles.

It seems that the Heal the Bay group had a dinner party/fundraiser last night. While the group's brochure said there would be no bottled water served at the event, attendees actually got PET bottles of a product called Bone Water in their gift bags. On top of that, a brand that's often criticized by environmentalists, FIJI Water, had a page in the dinner brochure.

Blogger Siel wrote:

I'm not saying Heal the Bay was wrong to accept these sponsorships or products, necessarily. I'm just pointing out the quandaries to say I don't envy the jobs of the people who work there. Sure, I really do have a bone to pick with this Bone Water thing -- but every environmentalist has her pet peeve, and every little compromise the nonprofit makes must bring forth a cacophony of complaints --

Her comments are something for plastics companies to keep in mind. Sponsoring or contributing to an environmental project or effort might win some support. But don't expect it to change everyone's mind.

The NewScientist.com news service has a fun story today about a proposal to build "an army of inflatable, spherical robots," shaped like soccer balls, that could economically explore Mars and other planets.

"Our inflatable rovers are lightweight, travel great distances, use very low energy and will be fairly cheap," said Fredrik Bruhn of Angström Aerospace Corp. in Uppsala, Sweden. His group has funding from Rymdstyrelsen, which is the Swedish National Space Board.

The advantages? Since they're inflatable, they take up less cargo space on the trip to Mars. Being spherical, they are energy-efficient to move, and they're perfect for rolling around on irregular surfaces.

The inflatable shell would be made of polyaryletheretherketone, which is tough and capable of withstanding high temperatures. The surface would incorporate solar panels to capture energy that would power the craft.