All of our most popular blog posts of 2015

We introduced nine new blogs on PlasticsNews.com this year, and I'm happy to report that they're very popular with our readers. Most weeks at least a few of our blogs are high on the list of the most-viewed content on the website.

The quality and volume of items convinced me to share with readers some of the top posts of 2015, just like I regularly do in my top story report.

Rather than a straight countdown, I'll highlight the most popular item from each of the blogs, plus a few extra from the Top 10.

As a reminder, in June we introduced new blogs by all of our staff reporters, and a few of our editors. We also reintroduced Nina Ying Sun's blog to PlasticsNews.com. So for the first time in a couple of years, my blog, The Plastics Blog, wasn't alone. Here's a reintroduction to all the bloggers, with each one's most popular post of 2015:

Bill Bregar, our senior reporter who covers plastics machinery, hit a home run in his Heavy Metal blog, with the second-most-read blog post of 2015, Goodbye, Mount Gilead, with fond memories.

Bill was reflecting on his years of experience covering HPM in Mount Gilead, Ohio, a town he obviously loves. He wrote: "Mount Gilead is classic small-town Ohio. At the heart of downtown, cars flow around a World War I monument. It has a movie theater, spelled 'theatre.' Malls are far enough away that the downtown is fairly healthy.

"Peaceful and a little scruffy. A few thousand residents. Everybody knows everybody else. In fact, Donna Carver, the Sentinel reporter who also covered Filos' court hearing, greeted the judge, the bailiff and the prosecutors by first name."

PN news editor Rhoda Miel got strong numbers in her Pop goes Plastics blog with a funny post about a lawsuit: News anchor, toy look nothing alike, claims Hasbro in lawsuit reply.

The item was about dueling claims from Hasbro Inc. and news anchor Harris Faulkner over a toy hamster named ... Harris Faulkner.

Click through to the item for side-by-side photos comparing the person and the toy hamster Harris Faulkner.

Jeremy Carroll, our video editor and assistant managing editor, uses video extensively in his Behind the Lens blog, and his top post of the year was How GW Plastics aims to be just like Starbucks. The post is from an interview with President and CEO Brenan "Ben" Riehl of custom injection molder GW Plastics in Bethel, Vt.

Nina Ying Sun, managing editor of our Plastics News China website, scored the third-most popular blog numbers on PlasticsNews.com in 2015 with her post The story behind those plastics-eating worms. She shared the story of how an attention-getting story — on mealworms able to consume polystyrene waste — was inspired by storage troubles in a Chinese kitchen.

Nina's blog on PlasticsNews.com is called The Other Side, and she also continues to write her China blog — sometimes with exclusive content — on the PlasticsNews China pages (in both English and Chinese).

Senior reporter Frank Esposito has become one of our most prolific bloggers, and the top post in his One Good Resin blog this year is PolyOne takes aim on customer service, a story about how PolyOne Corp. worked with TenPoint Crossbow Technologies to provide soft-touch TPE and high-strength engineered polymers for crossbows and related products.

Staff reporter Kerri Jansen had a lot of fun in her most popular post of 2015, An unforgettable moment at Fakuma 2015. It's the unexpected story of the unusual flavors of Jello at Covestro booth at the Fakuma trade show in Germany.

Let's just say it's not every day that you sample langoustine-flavored Jello. I'm looking forward to more of Kerr's humor in 2016, in her Reactions blog.

Marijuana packaging is funny, too, right? I imagine Cheech and Chong would think so. And PlasticsNews.com readers may agree, since Jim Johnson got plenty of clicks for his blog post on the topic, High praise for marijuana packaging company.

The item is about Kush Bottles Inc., described as "an international supplier of certified, child-resistant packaging, branded exit solutions, and accessories for the cannabis industry,” and how the company made Inc. magazine's list of the 5000 fastest-growing companies in America, thanks to the growing market for legal pot.

Jim usually covers recycling, packaging and sustainability topics in his blog, named No. 7, after the SPI resin code for “other.”

Catherine Kavanaugh's top post from 2015 will likely be popular for a long time, because readers are always interested in this topic: Consumer Reports tests vinyl tile for safety, durability. (Yes, it's already ahead of her post that actually has the word "viral" in the headline, Shade balls in limelight with viral video.)

Both items are from Catherine's From Pillar to Post blog, which focuses on the construction beat.

Gayle S. Putrich's View from Washington blog focuses on her beat, which is the world of legislators, lobbyists, regulators and trade associations inside the D.C. beltway. Her most popular post this year was More phthalate studies, more confusion, ACC says.

The general topic, misreporting facts about plastics and their safety, is, unfortunately, a subject that we could write quite a lot about.

Another one of our most prolific bloggers, and most popular, is Steve Toloken, our news editor — international, with his Brics and Plastics blog.

His top post of 2015 was one that got quite a few reactions from readers, in print and online: Why the plastics industry should be OK with limits on plastic bags. Check out the reader comments ... plus, I wrote a Viewpoint for Plastics News about the column, and we published a few letters on the topic, too. (Thanks for the reader feedback!)

Finally, I promised a few more highlights from our Top 10 blog posts of 2015. You already know the No. 2 and No. 3 most-read posts of the year. The others are from The Plastics Blog, but I won't take the credit, because I had plenty of help.

The rest of the Top 10 are:

Obama talks about composites and 3-D printing at Techmer PM.

Cardboard sewer pipe? Not the most durable choice. (Thanks to long-time PN correspondent Mike Lauzon for this one).

Who are the fastest-growing North American film & sheet manufacturers? Thanks to editorial research coordinator Hollee Keller, I post a blog item about all the Plastics News rankings each year, highlighting interesting trends, fast-growing companies and companies that are new to each ranking. As you'll see, these are very popular features.

Let's take a look at the fastest growing thermoformers.

Which companies are new to our ranking of the Top 100 injection molders?

Paper company declares 'war' on plastics.

Who are the fastest-growing mold makers?

And our No. 1 blog post of 2015: More news leaks out on Procter & Gamble's Imflux business. Thanks, again, to Mike Lauzon on this post — the two of us are very interested in the innovative injection molding technology being developed at P&G's Imflux Inc. unit, and we've been doing our best to stay on top of all the latest developments. Obviously, from the reader traffic, we're not alone.

Thanks again to all the PlasticsNews.com local readers. We'll keep providing you with the industry's best news coverage — and blogs — in 2016.