Kickstart: Bioplastics are child's play

When toymakers gather for the New York Toy Fair 2020 next month, Mark Remmert will be there to provide them with information on how to make their toys a little more green.

Remmert, the CEO of Kansas-based Green Dot Bioplastics Inc., will lead a panel discussion asking, "Is sustainable attainable?" Green Dot has been supplying a compostable elastomeric bioplastic made to toymakers and other consumer companies.

Green Dot operates a bioplastics plant in Onaga, Kan. One of the firm's products is the market's first compostable elastomeric bioplastic — a soft rubberlike plastic that is strong, pliable, and biodegradable. Its products already go into a range of toys and other items.

Remmert's message is that consumers, especially millennials, want better materials for their kids' toys.

"Bioplastics are the way of the future," he said.

It's only been a little more than a week since the first widespread warnings about a flulike coronavirus, centered in the city of Wuhan, China.

Since then it's spread globally, although only a small number of cases have been confirmed outside China. But those cases have included employees of auto supplier Webasto SE who never went to China, but instead interacted with a Chinese colleague in Germany, who had no symptoms until the employee returned to China.

Steve Toloken and the rest of the Plastics News team has been tracking the impact on the plastics business, however. So far that includes the postponement of Asiamold 2020 in Guangzhou, originally set for Feb. 26-28.

We'll keep you updated as more information becomes available.

There were some blockbuster deals announced in 2019, covering machinery makers Milacron and Negri Bossi, materials supplier PolyOne and North America's biggest rotomolder, Tank Holding Corp., getting even bigger.

But despite those big headlines, the year overall was pretty close to 2018 in terms of the number of deals, Frank Esposito writes. But 2020 may be hard to forecast.

While there is private equity cash that is ready and able to entice owners to sell, but conditions on the world stage — and in politics at home — could complicate sales.

"In an election year, you can add some unknowns," says Andrew Petryk, managing director at Brown Gibbons Lang in Cleveland.