(Oct. 6, 2008) — Loved your editorial on plastic bags, bottles and plastic usage in general [“Get back to basics to combat backlash,” Sept. 22, Page 6].
Has anyone really ever thought of a serious method for reuse or recycling of plastic bags? Don't try to throw them in the recycle tote in Fort Worth, Texas! I have been dinged several times with nasty threatening cards posted on my tote when they have found any evidence of plastic bag materials at all. Even the sleeves that wrap my morning paper are banned from the recycle tote. I've even tried to sneak a few in every once in a while, but I swear there is a person living in my recycle tote.
The local grocery stores don't want them back, so there is no choice but to use the ones we can and to throw the rest into the trash, which then adds fuel to the debate. It's a vicious, no-end circle. The recycling programs we have are good, but really need to be expanded.
The way I see it, extremist groups have just grown to a point where it is almost intolerable to manufacture anything without some sort of recourse. Just review the drug industry and their advertising disclaimers (if you have 20-20 vision and are a whiz at quick reading). Sometimes I wonder if these individuals have anything at all to do to make their worldly existence worthwhile other than complain.
Again, the bottom line to all of this is money and profit. Although I have made my total career out of thermoplastic injection molding, and still try to, and parts of my body are implanted with the stuff (juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, age 9), I am smart enough to see the bottom line. (The JRA affected my joints, not my brain.)
Industries such as automotive, bottle makers, blown film and bag producers, and on and on, did not turn to thermoplastics and composite polymers because they outlast metals.
The advantages of plastics are instead due to the savings in weight, initial cost and end profit, and proven form, fit and function for performance over a proven time frame.
I do not feel guilty, at all, about trying to pound out a meager living through the industry that has provided an existence for our family for more than 39 years. It's been an interesting journey, indeed. Very much harder to survive these days, but truly an industry that has kept me up on my feet for all of those years. My wife has stated many times that I am one of the luckiest people in the world, as she says she has never seen anyone who enjoys going to work more than me.
And this is what it is all about!
Enjoyed the editorial, keep them coming.
Lonnie Maxcy
President
Maxcy Molding Technologies Inc.
Fort Worth, Texas