Plastics News by the year: 2005

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: 2005.

JANUARY

A long-awaited U.S. Green Building Council report finds that PVC and vinyl building products are no worse and no better than alternative materials. “The available evidence does not support a conclusion that PVC is consistently worse than alternative materials on a life cycle environmental and health basis,” the group writes. “PVC does not emerge as a clear winner or loser.”

Demag Plastics Group's Bill Carteaux is named to replace Don Duncan as SPI president.

FEBRUARY

San Francisco is planning the first-ever tax on plastic and paper bags. A proposal before the city would slap a 17-cent tax on grocery stores per bag.

Vinyl siding manufacturers fear a new competitor could be headed their way: fiber cement.

A polystyrene piggy bank dating to the 1950s — which has served as the mascot for Canada's Design Exchange — is stolen during the show. Once word of the theft leaks out, the Reliable Toys division of Viceroy Rubber & Plastics Ltd., which molded the original bank, supplies a replacement.

MARCH

The Gates, a 7,500-piece exhibition at New York's Central Park by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, closes. The Gates had used more than 750,000 pounds of PVC, 75,000 pounds of nylon fabric and 10,000 pounds each of high-impact polystyrene and polypropylene. All the materials are being recycled.

APRIL

Ford becomes the first automaker to begin use multi-shot molding when Visteon Corp. uses a two-shot process to make the instrument panel for the new Mustang sports car.

MAY

Plastics News announces its new focus on China, introducing the Plastics News China eWeekly.

Visteon Corp. is shedding plants, including much of its injection molding production, in a move to slash costs. Former parent Ford agrees to take over operations at 24 facilities — including injection molding in Saline, Utica and Plymouth, Mich., blow molding in Milan, Mich., and lighting in Sandusky, Ohio — with an intention to sell them to other suppliers. Automotive Components Holdings is set to close its final plant, the Plymouth injection molding site, at the end of this year.

JULY

Rolco Inc. has started making a horseshoe of a different color. The Kasota, Minn., company has found a niche producing a thermoplastic horseshoe that is, the company says, is the equivalent of a Nike athletic shoe for the equine set. Photo marked

Ben Martin, head of sales and marketing for auxiliary company Conair Group Inc., focuses on his side career in movies as the film he wrote, directed and starred in, “One Last Stop In A Violent Town,” debuts. “The direction and writing is sometimes amateurish, but that is acceptable considering an amateur does the writing and direction,” notes PN intern Jason Lea.

AUGUST

The ever-acquisitive Plastech Engineered Products Inc. is making a play to buy auto supplier Collins & Aikman Corp. from Chapter 11, a move that would make it the largest injection molder in North America. Not only does Plastech lose the bid, it ends up in bankruptcy court itself in 2008 and is liquidated.

Hurricane Katrina roars across the Gulf Coast, shutting down resin firms across Mississippi and Louisiana and injection molders in three states.

OCTOBER

Delphi Corp., North America's biggest auto supplier and a major producer and buyer of plastic parts globally, enters Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, leaving companies throughout the industry worried about what awaits them.

Financier Wilbur Ross and his W.L. Ross & Co. LLC takes aim at buying Collins & Aikman assets from bankruptcy. The company that emerges from his plan to consolidate the auto interior supply business, International Automotive Components, becomes one of the largest molders and parts makers.

NOVEMBER

Wood-plastics composites has gotten a big shot from the home decking business, with composites expected to make up 35 percent of the decking material business by 2010.

NatureWorks LLC looks like its about to take off with its polylactic acid picked for containers in Wal-Mart Stores products.

DECEMBER

Rod Lowman is leaving as president of the American Plastics Council as the group is about to be folded into new parent group the American Chemistry Council.