Kickstart: Air ball

Want to be on the cutting edge of basketball technology? Wilson Sporting Good Co. is ready to sell you one of the world's first 3D printed basketballs. All it'll cost you is $2,500.

For the record, an official NBA game ball is listed for $199 on the Wilson website. The Airless Gen1 is "an updated iteration" of a prototype shown a year ago. The ball on sale on the website makes it "possible for the world to experience the future of sport for themselves."

At least that's true for those who already paid the $2,500. The website has a sign-up for future deliveries.

"Rather than being inflated, Airless Gen1 relies on a 3D printed polymer lattice structure," Wilson says. "The basketball nearly fits the performance specifications of a regulation basketball including its weight, size and rebound (bounce)."

The ball's design mimics that of traditional basketball with "panel-like lobes and a familiar seam structure," but the lattice has holes across the surface allowing air to pass through.

But that's not all. Wilson notes that the Airless Gen1 comes with a case, stand and three-letter customizable tag.

Karlheinz Bourdon, a key leader of machinery company KraussMaffei and a Plastics Hall of Fame member, has received the Georg Menges Prize for 2024 from German plastics industry group VDMA, PlasticsEurope Deutschland and the IKV Institute for Plastics Processing,

The prize is presented biannually for work in transferring knowledge from research laboratories to production floors.

Bourdon studied under Menges at IKV.

"I think without him I never would have studied the plastic machinery industry," Bourdon told Plastics News when he was named to the Hall of Fame in 2018, following his mentor who joined the Hall in 2006.

Bourdon has led KraussMaffei in developing automated mold changes, increased use of robotics and the development of all-electric injection molding machines. He is current a member of the supervisory board of KraussMaffei Group.

The Ohio River covers a lot of ground — 981 miles between Pittsburgh and the Mississippi River at Cairo, Ill. So it shouldn't be a surprise that a cleanup effort involves multiple communities, states and sponsors, including some heavy hitters in the plastics industry.

The Ohio River Sweep event is so big it even has stretched from a one-day event to a full season, with the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) and the Foundation for Ohio River Education (FORE) coordinating efforts in six states. Corporate sponsors include Braskem, Celanese, Berry, Shell Polymers, DuPont and Milacron.

In 2024, individual cleanup efforts will take place from March to October. In 2022, 5,146 people working in 112 individual Sweep events collected 156,060 pounds of litter from the river. ORSANCO is seeking volunteers for the 2024 season now.