Kickstart: All 18 exhibit halls filled for K 2025

Finally caught up with everything from NPE2024? Because K 2025 is right around the corner.

Messe Düsseldorf, which hosts the triennial global K show in Düsseldorf, Germany, says the space in all 18 halls and auxiliary buildings has been claimed for the Oct. 8-15, 2025, event.

"K 2025 will provide the complete overview of a plastics industry undergoing transformation and again have a plethora of impressive innovations in store," Erhard Wienkamp, managing director of Messe Düsseldorf, said in a news release. "We know that many of our exhibitors are already preparing their product innovations and presentations at full speed."

More than 3,000 exhibitors have booked space for the trade show, with companies from Europe and the U.S. joined by an increasing number of firms from China, India and Taiwan.

The slogan for 2025 — The Power of Plastics: Green, Smart, Responsible — also covers three core messages within it: "Shaping the Circular Economy," "Embracing Digitalization" and "Caring About People," organizers said.

But if you're in Europe between now and the next K show, two different global companies — representing the industry's materials and machinery businesses — have just opened two different collaborative product development facilities.

LyondellBasell says its KunstStoffWelt in Kerpen, Germany, will "serve as an inspirational hub" for workshops and training sessions with customers from various sectors. The site "blends art, sustainability and innovation to showcase the potential of plastics in a whole new light."

Design professor Angelika Rösner and Erik Licht, director new business development of advanced polymer solutions Europe at LYB, developed KunstStoffWelt.

The Arburg Technology Center is part of its renovated Radevormwald, Germany, facility. The machinery maker based in Lossburg, Germany, closed and gutted the site in 2022 to upgrade operations. Solar panels now provide about 60 percent of the energy needs there.

The center provides "state-of-the-art" training facilities with seven injection molding machines and robotics for sampling, testing and training, Arburg officials said.

The Port of Baltimore has fully reopened now that workers have cleared wreckage of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge from shipping channels. Now comes the real work: planning its replacement.

The bridge, struck by a freighter early on March 26, did not have the catastrophic ripple effect on global supply chains that was first feared in the hours and days after the incident that killed six workers. But it has still affected traffic throughout the region.

The Fort McHenry Federal Channel in the Patapsco River reopened June 10, Maryland Department of Transportation officials said.

The bridge had been part of a major highway artery on the East Coast, affecting road traffic for local residents and commercial trucks. State officials have started meeting with hundreds of potential contractors, subcontractors and stakeholders to begin planning its replacement.