Kickstart: A rotomolded camping option

We've written about how the pandemic has led to a lot of "staycation" spending. But it's also prompted investments by consumers into campers, recreational vehicles and trailers.

The RV Industry Association reported recently that the number of RVs shipped in October 2021 was up 22.5 percent vs. the same month in 2020. The 57,971 units represented the highest shipment number for the month of October and was some 2,000 units higher than September 2021.

That's good news, obviously, for companies that make RVs and trailers as well as suppliers to those OEMs. Thetford Corp., a molder of camper toilet systems and accessories, was recently acquired by a private equity fund.

RVs and trailers are a popular option for travel while still retaining personal private space. Can their the popularity lead to investments in new kinds of RVs?

A rotomolder in Cape Town, South Africa, certainly seems to think so.

The owner of 4EVR Plastic Products, Vonnie Heyns, says a friend familiar with how rotomolding is used to make tough protective cases, kayaks, tanks and other items asked if it was possible to rotomold a camping trailer.

The Edge Out is molded in separate sleeping and kitchen pods, allowing users to tweak a trailer the company refers to as "robust" and low maintenance.

Office workers planning a return to their corporate desks early next year may see another delay thanks to the omicron variant of COVID-19, if Ford Motor Co. proves to be an example of changes in store.

The Dearborn, Mich., automaker had planned to reopen offices for hybrid operations in January but said Dec. 6 that it is now pushing that back to March.

"The state of COVID-19 remains fluid, and despite the success of our ongoing safety protocols and increased vaccination rates, we are shifting the start date of the hybrid work model to March," Ford said in a statement. "We will begin with a pilot phase for select non-site-dependent employees in February and in March, we expect remaining team members to begin working flexibly between Ford campuses and remote options."

The worlds of art and plastics are overlapping again, this time in St. Petersburg, Russia, where a plastics factory is home to a street art museum and gallery.

The walls of the Plastic Lamination Factory double as canvasses for artists while the interior houses a permanent collection.

"The museum was founded in 2012 after a graffiti party [was] held in one of the abandoned factory's workshops," the Street Art Museum website notes. "The permanent collection includes around 50  works by contemporary artists, which can be seen as a part of an excursion around the factory territory and premises."

The factory houses ongoing production, so visitors must bring ID to get past security.

Plastics firms and artists have a long history of collaboration. A. Reynolds Morse, who founded Injection Molding Service Co. and helped establish Van Dorn Plastic Machinery Co., and his wife, Eleanor, were friends with surrealist Salvador Dali and collected many of his works. Their paintings and donations became the backbone of the Dali museum in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Gordon Lankton, who built injection molder and toolmaker Nypro into a global company before it was sold to Jabil, was a collector of Russian icon art, providing his collection for a museum.

And Stefan Edlis invested both in his Apollo Plastics Corp. and modern art, serving as vice chairman of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.