Kickstart: A 'universal' toy

Maybe the items selected to enter the Toy Hall of Fame this year aren't tied as strongly to plastics as past honorees like Lego, but the American Girl Doll and the board game Risk certainly use plastics. And how better to play with sand than with a bucket and shovel?

The Hall of Fame, based at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y., named its honorees on Nov. 4, passing over other finalists including the billiard ball, the Fisher-Price Corn Popper and Masters of the Universe action figures, among other nominees.

Sand joins the stick, the blanket and the cardboard box in the hall as a "universal" toy.

"Although some playthings can only be found online or in certain stores, sand has a global reach that most toy manufacturers would envy," Chief Curator Christopher Bensch said in a news release. "It's been a vehicle for play since prehistory, and anyone who has spent the day at the beach can understand the allure of this toy."

Like sand, another item being noted this year also is not specifically about plastics but certainly has some strong plastics connections. After all, how would the word "vax" become so widely used that Oxford University Press would term it the word of the year without all the plastics medical supplies used along with vaccinations?

Oxford says use of the word vax was 72 times more frequent in September 2021 than in September 2020.

"It has generated numerous derivatives that we are now seeing in a wide range of informal contexts, from vax sites and vax cards to getting vaxxed and being fully vaxxed, no word better captures the atmosphere of the past year than vax," it said.

The demand for vaccinations is continuing to stress the medical supply chain.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Francis Kateh, Edward Kelley and Jimmy Kolker — representing global health operations and developing countries — say that there aren't enough of the small syringes used in vaccinations to meet global needs, and companies are reticent to invest in capital equipment to increase production because they aren't sure if demand will continue once COVID is (hopefully) behind us.

"In normal times, supply should follow demand," they wrote. "But as with personal protective equipment early in the pandemic, COVID-19 is exposing gaps in that thinking. Supply chains for syringes are fragile and liable to 'syringe nationalism' as countries keep syringes local."

One word — or an acronym, specifically — is officially debuting in late 2021: BMG. That's the name for the umbrella company that used to be called Brown Machine Group, the Beaverton, Mich.-based thermoforming machinery company.

"BMG is our umbrella, and each brand can talk about solutions across the portfolio to fit customer needs," BMG President and CEO Greg Wolf said in a Nov. 4 news release. "Brown Machine Group was already being shortened to BMG both externally and internally, and we believe the change is more inclusive to our family of brands and is easy for our customers to identify and remember."

The Brown name is still used for that brand of machines produced by BMG, along with the Lyle and GN brands. The original company marks its 70th anniversary in 2022.