Plastics News reporter Sarah Smith gathered these stories from Westpack, held Sept. 23-25 in Anaheim, Calif.
PCI expanding with ninth thermoformer
Plastic Concept Inc. of Huntington Beach, Calif., added its ninth thermoforming machine earlier this year.
The German-made machine runs rigid PVC, PET, polystyrene and glycol-modified PET for the cosmetic and electronic industries.
PCI designs products using three-dimensional solid modeling software and computer-aided design and manufacturing prototyping. It has an in-house tooling department to convert the proto- type designs to finished products. PCI also does hot-stamping, engraving and assembly work.
PCI was 70th in Plastics News' ranking of North American thermoformers with sales of $6.5 million. It has about 40 employees.
Klockner recovering PVC from converters
Klockner Pentaplast of America Inc. and Klockner Packaging Machinery introduced a system for reclaiming vinyl film scrap from pharmaceutical packaging converters.
Under the system, called Optima, Klockner buys back edge trim from customers who buy both Pentapharm blister packaging film and the new push-through vinyl lidstock, Optilid.
``Our primary objective is to relieve customers of trim handling and disposal costs,'' said Michael Tubridy, Klockner's director of sales and marketing.
The firm also introduced static-dissipative polyester films for thermoformed packaging of electric parts. The material uses an internal electrostatic dissipative formulation to avoid transfer of coating to electronic parts inside the package, which can happen with topically coated films.
Klockner Pentaplast is in Gordonsville, Va.; Klockner Packaging Machinery is in Sarasota, Fla.
