Kickstart: So long to the scoop

We may be bidding farewell soon to one of the most iconic uses of plastics and composites in the auto industry: the hood scoop.

The scoop was originally designed to help performance cars go faster by providing extra cooling to the engine, although some car designers and enthusiasts just liked them and added nonfunctional scoops. They have appeared on everything from classic muscle cars to the Subaru WRX rally car and the Trans Am that starred (alongside Burt Reynolds and Sally Fields) in Smokey and the Bandit.

Blame electric vehicles for the expected end of the scoop, writes Richard Truett of our sister paper Automotive News. EVs don't need the funnel of cool air from scoops, and in fact the poor aerodynamics of a classic scoop means they're more of a drag than an enhancement. And with automakers looking to squeeze every mile out of an EV, the scoop has to go.

Richard breaks down the history of hood scoops into three eras: Stylized slots and slits used from the late 1940s to mid-'60s; scoops that fed air directly into the engine via the carbureator or fuel injection system from the late '60s to early '90s; and scoops used to help turbocharged vehicles deliver more power by routing air to the turbo's intercooler, which helps create cooler, denser air for more power, starting in the 1990s.

It's always a nice option for a company to be able to highlight its own products at its corporate headquarters. Obviously that's hard to do if you make, say, an engine part for the auto industry or a chicken feeding system.

For NatureWorks LLC, the company behind the Ingeo polylactic acid, a move to a bigger facility in Plymouth, Minn., set for next month will provide a stage for a variety of parts made of its plastic.

The new space will act as a showcase for examples of Ingeo in applications from appliances to 3D printing and compostable and recyclable paper coatings.

NatureWorks materials are used in the lighting, flooring and art in the new office, the company said. A "robust organics recycling collection system" will provide composting for food waste along with having compostable foodservice ware, coffee pods and tea bags.

The expansion at the headquarters comes as NatureWorks prepares for the expected 2024 opening of an integrated Ingeo polylactic acid manufacturing complex in Thailand with an annual capacity of 75,000 tons.

There's been a lot of stories about the one-year anniversary of President Joe Biden's inauguration (and the anniversary of events that preceeded it). Who am I to fight a trend? So here's an update on the plastics connection to a viral moment from Jan. 20, 2021.

The Valley News of West Lebanon, N.H., spoke with the woman who made the now-iconic mittens that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders wore to the inauguration. The mittens, as we noted in 2021, made by Jen Ellis included insulation made from recycled PET.

Ellis told Valley News that she wasn't interested in turning her hobby into a career, so she didn't turn into a full-time mitten maker. Instead, she inked a deal with Vermont Teddy Bear Co., which "promised to create 10 new mitten-making jobs, use recycled materials and give a portion of the profits to Make-A-Wish Vermont."

The project has raised $2 million for charities since then.

The other plastic product spawned by Sanders' inauguration style, a bobblehead in his image from the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, sold well enough that the Milwaukee-based Hall of Fame has since released two other Sanders-themed bobbleheads.