Plastics News correspondent Roger Renstrom reported these items from Westpack, held Sept. 23-25 in Anaheim, Calif.
Sun Coast exhibits PP liners in closures
Sun Coast Closures of Sarasota, Fla., showed closures with polypropylene liners for wide-mouth dressing jars or industrial containers.
``The closures can offer our customers as much as 15 percent lower cost than conventional continuous-threaded metal and plastic closures now on the market; can run on existing capping equipment; and do not require a neck finish change,'' said Peter Lennox, vice president of sales and marketing.
The Sun-Guard closures have diameters of 70-450 millimeters for food dressing jars and 63-445mm for industrial applications. They use the company's proprietary, freely rotating lining system and retention feature that keep the liner from falling out.
Sun Coast Closures is a division of Dallas-based Sun Coast Industries Inc.
Milliken 3988 keeps PP water cups clear
Thermoformers in Columbia and Brazil are using Milliken Chemical's third-generation sorbitol-based clarifying agent in disposable, single-use polypropylene water cups, according to Roberto Guzman, Milliken's Mexico territory manager.
Retail outlets sell the popular cups, topped with a foil lid, in settings where purified water is not readily available, Guzm n said. The latest use is for fruit-flavored waters.
No firms are using the material in Mexico to produce the water cup yet, but one is importing cups from South America and filling them for a test, he said.
``What used to keep PP out of that market is that it is hazy,'' Guzman said.
Use of Millad 3988 increases the rate of crystal initiation throughout the polymer. The crystals let light pass through a thermoformed PP cup or an injection molded food, beverage, electronic or pharmaceutical container.
The clarifying agent widens the temperature window to process PP and, in the water cup, forms a tougher unit than a polystyrene one, which ``breaks very easily,'' according to Guzman.
Milliken & Co.'s Milliken Chemical division is in Spartanburg, S.C.
Molder Rehrig adds PP pallet to lineup
Injection molder Rehrig Pacific Co. has developed a 37-inch-square polypropylene pallet as a supplement for industries it already serves, said design manager Jerry Koefelda.
Rehrig Pacific specializes in reusable plastic containers.
``Pepsi and Coke are two of our big customers,'' Koefelda said.
Test samples show the light, stiff pallet has greater surface area on the bottom, which spreads the load over a greater number of caps, he added.
The firm plans to make other sizes of the pallet, using high-density polyethylene and, possibly, glass reinforcements or talc fillers.
In Los Angeles, Rehrig Pacific employs about 100 and makes large parts on a 3,000-ton Husky press. Clamping forces of 11 other machines start at 700 tons.
The company molds a new line of 35-, 65- and 95-gallon rollout garbage carts and makes milk cases and spinach and grape crates.
Rehrig Pacific's other plants are in Lawrenceville, Ga.; Raymond, N.H.; Erie, Pa.; Gurnee, Ill.; and Dallas.
Intertape customers can order off menu
A chance combining of customer orders has led Intertape Polymer Group Inc. to market its products and delivery together.
Intertape and its distributors in North America can combine orders for water-activated tape, pressure-sensitive tape, stretch film and shrink film on the same truck and deliver in five days or less.
By November, Intertape expects to begin production of polyolefin film at a new, 115,000-square-foot facility in Tremonton, Utah.
The site will become Intertape's fourth North American full-distribution location, joining Danville, Va.; Montreal; and Green Bay, Wis.
Intertape is based in St.-Laurent, Quebec, employs more than 1,500 and reported earnings of C$28.6 million (US$21 million) on 1996 sales of C$271.3 million (US$198.9 million).
