Kickstart: Plastic rocks

When the general public thinks of the problems of plastic leaking into the environment, they may use the image of a turtle with a plastic straw caught in its nose or birds caught up in a plastic ring originally used for a multipack of drinks.

Now there are the plastic rocks on a remote volcanic island off Brazil that is home to a turtle sanctuary.

Fernanda Avelar Santos, a geologist at the Federal University of Parana, documented the "plastiglomerates" — made up of natural sediment and bound by plastic — on Trinidade.

"We identified [the pollution] mainly comes from fishing nets, which is very common debris on Trinidade Island's beaches," Santos told Reuters. "The [nets] are dragged by the marine currents and accumulate on the beach. When the temperature rises, this plastic melts and becomes embedded with the beach's natural material."

This isn't the first time plastiglomerates have been found, according to the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), part of the Brazilian Ministry of Education.

They were first reported in Hawaii and have since shown up in England, Japan, Italy, Portugal and Peru. Those sites, however, had individual rocks. On Trinidade they combined to create an outcrop of several "plastic rocks."

Chemical company Asahi Kasei has found itself as part of the story in the bankruptcy of a medical device company.

Asahi Kasei was the largest creditor of JustLight, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based maker of therapeutic infrared light devices. In a statement to Crain's Detroit Business, a sister publication of Plastics News, a company spokesman said the investment was part of a "debt instrument" and that Asahi Kasei had nothing to do with the bankruptcy.

JustLight was forced into Chapter 7 at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit because investors lost faith in the company's founder.

As CDB writes, JustLight's assets and intellectual property were purchased by Eypex Corp., an Auburn Hills, Mich.-based auto supplier. Eypex had been a supplier to JustLight, making its Sunflower product, a lamp-like device using infrared light to ease joint and muscle pain.

Two trends in plastics industry news combined in one story that broke on March 20: The increased interest in mergers and acquisitions for rotomolding businesses and continued growth for Plastic News Processor of the Year finalists.

Redline Plastics LLC, a finalist for the 2022 POY award and the winner of the Plastics News Excellence Award for Employee Relations, has purchased Quality Holdings LLC, a rotomolder and compression molder in Hartwell, Ga.

The acquisition brings Redline of Manitowoc, Wis., a 144,000-square-foot facility in Hartwell with 60 employees.

The purchase will add capacity, new markets and processes for Redline.