Plastics News by the year: 1989

As Plastics News marks its 25th year of publication, we take a year-by-year look back at some of the events, people and curious coincidences that have shown up its its pages. Check back through the end of the year (not including holidays) to follow along. This year: 1989.

1989

March

Plastics News publishes its first issue. The staff included Publisher Lowell G. “Chris” Chrisman, Editor Robert Grace, Advertising Director Donald Dasburg and Promotion Manager Linda Whelan. Others staff members included Carl Kirkland, executive editor; Ronald Shinn, managing editor; Angela Spreitzer, assistant managing editor; William Bregar, Dan Charnas, Michele Raymond, Jeanne Reall and Bruce Vernyi, reporters; Lisa Sarkis Neaville, editorial assistant; Rich Williams, editorial cartoonist; Anthony Eagan,  eastern regional sales manager; Richard Railton Jr., Jack Moran and Akio Saijo, regional sales; Carolyn Reed-Dickson, classified advertising manager; Gail Jones, sales secretary; and Jean Herdina, secretary to the publisher.

President George H.W. Bush rejects an push by U.S. injection molding machine makers to place additional tariffs on machines being imported into the country from Japan. However, a federal ban did remain on place for presses from Toshiba Machine Co. Ltd., a ban first signed by President Reagan. Toshiba, the government said, also sold milling machines to the Soviet Union, where they were used to create “silent” submarine propellers for the USSR's Navy.

For automotive plastics fans and suppliers who loved the Pontiac Fiero and its plastic body panels, General Motors Corp. promises that some of the breakthrough plastic technology from that car — which ceased production in 1988 — will make it into its upcoming “All Purpose Vehicle.” Twenty-five years later, the Fiero remains a bit of an icon. The Chevrolet Lumina minivan APV? Not nearly so desired.

Top winners in the DuPont Awards for food packaging were companies in the “food packaging convenience for consumers,” which focused on new microwaveable products.

GM begins releasing information about its upcoming Saturn sedan. Plastics will play a big role in the car, says Saturn's director of materials management Alan Perriton, appearing in vertical body panels, interior systems and under the hood.

April

Japan Steel Works Ltd. becomes the first Japanese machine maker to begin production in the U.S. when it announces an agreement with NATCO Inc. in Richmond, Ind. Just a few months earlier NATCO had been part of the attempt to bar Japanese companies from U.S. trade.

Detroit's Big Three automakers tell suppliers they are picking up pace for plans to build an all plastic car, with a target date for replacing metals with composites of the year 2000. This will not be the first — nor last — time automakers say the plastic car will be on the market soon.

“Plastics don't seem to turn people on as far as education is concerned.” Gerald L. Steele, director of Ball State University's plastics research center.

May

Innovative Plastic Products Inc. opens the first North American recycling plant using technology from West Germany. It would be another year until West Germany reunified with East Germany.

Little Tikes toy company founder Thomas Murdough Jr. prepares to step down from the company, five years after selling it to Rubbermaid. In 2006, private investors buy the company from Rubbermaid to make it an independent toy maker once again.

June

Several chemical companies pull their employees from China in the wake of the government crackdown there. One U.S.-China trade group pulled its representatives from Beijing just as the first students were killed in Tiananmen Square. “We might not know for a few weeks if we have a problem or if our business will be affected,” said an employee from one resin supplier who asked he not be identified.

Key Plastics Inc. buys molder Austrian American Inc. in York, Penn., and says it is negotiating to acquire more. Between 1996 and 1999, Key would make a series of acquisitions taking it from $217 million in annual sales to $550 million. Saddled with debt, the Plymouth, Mich.-based auto supplier declared bankruptcy in 2000, later emerging as a leaner firm.

July

The U.S. Center for Marine Conservation releases a study showing that plastic trash accounts for 62 percent of the 1,000 tons of debris collected from shorelines in 25 states. Small fragments of plastic were the biggest single source of debris, followed by expanded polystyrene pieces, then plastic cups, forks, spoons, knives and straws. Metal cans came in at fourth on the list.

Ford Motor Co. kills a program to create a composite modular truck platform. “It's dead. The PN38 program is dead, kaput, defunct,” a source says. The proposal had focused on composites for a 1993 truck, but the company decided the infrastructure costs to change from steel would be too high to change. Twenty-five years later, and Ford's F-150 is debuting with a new aluminum body.

August

Record company Rykodisc calls for a change to the “longbox” CD package, calling the box wasteful. The industry standard for the polycarbonate discs now places them in a polystyrene jewel box, which is then placed in a 6-inch by 12-inch cardboard box which is coated with plastic or wrapped with a polypropylene cover. 

The Citizens Clearinghouse of Hazardous Waste targets McDonald's Corp.'s use of expanded polystyrene with its “Send It Back” campaign, telling environmentalists to send the used packaging to the fast foot giant's corporate headquarters. Foam makers mock the movement, though, telling the group that if it wanted to make a difference, it should send the foam to them for recycling.

“Some cite a gun-shy attitude, ingrained after such mammoth letdowns as the robotics and automation revolutions that died in the trenches in the early part of the 1980s ...” Unnamed source on the auto industry's reluctance to embrace new technology.

September

Japanese consumers are turning away from cash and toward something new: the debit card. As many as 10 new makers of the polyester cards have opened in Japan, while even fast food restaurants and supermarkets have begun accepting the cards.

Wonder Products Co., the maker of the iconic rotomolded, spring-mounted rocking horse, wins a second life when the products are purchased by Rotocast Plastic Products Inc.

October

Retailer JC Penney Co. Inc. announces it is switching to paper bags from plastic for its stores in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine and Florida — partially due to concerns about bans for plastic bags in those states, but also because of the “prestige” associated with paper bags compared to plastic. “The switch reflects a repositioning of our department store image,” a spokesman says.

An explosion at Phillips 66 Co.'s HDPE production facility in Pasadena, Texas, kills 23 people and injures another 314. It followed a smaller explosion in August which killed one person and injured another four.

November

Several Japanese companies have developed new materials — shape memory polymers — that can change their shape when heated. The biggest obstacle to commercialization is finding a market. “The companies don't quite know what to do with them yet,” one industry expert says. “It's an idea that's perhaps ahead of its time.”

December

The thawing relations between the West and the Soviet Union are prompting some companies to announce plans to invest in the USSR, although experts warn they should “look before you leap.” “Ease of doing business has eased recently,” one business owner says, “except for communicating.”

Medical device makers are in a rush to develop a new kind of artificial hip — one using composite plastics, rather than metal. Companies say the potential market is huge, with each artificial hip valued at $2,500 to $3,000 and more than a quarter million of them implanted each year.