Kickstart: Rising to the top

Most years, Plastics News gets a lot of nominations for our Rising Stars special report. This year we had a batch that stood out in quality, diversity — in terms of experience, career paths and country of their birth — and quantity, with nearly 100 people age 35 and younger nominated.

As Jordan Vitick, PN's special project editor, points out, it wasn't easy to narrow that down to just 35 people to profile.

As you read through the stories about this year's stars (in this week's print issue and available in a slightly longer version at plasticsnews.com/topic/rising-stars), you'll find people with family connections to the industry and people who only encountered plastics in high school or college.

That variety makes it hard to categorize them, but one thing remains true in 2023 as it has for the past 10 years. They are highly motivated by sustainability. Some stars said they were drawn to plastics as a career specifically because they saw a part they could play in creating a circular economy both from inside the industry and by working with the community at large.

As part of the nomination process, we asked potential stars this year to fill out a multiple-choice survey, allowing us to tap into the opinions of all the nominees. You can see the results of part of that survey above, including the fact that they are optimistic about the future.

Be sure and check out this year's Rising Stars. For the nominees who didn't make it, please try again. For those people who complain that young people aren't interested in manufacturing or plastics, this is a reminder that there are a lot of quality people out there, ready to take on more.

There are some pretty interesting projects that took home top awards from the Plastics Recycling Show Europe last week, featuring some familiar names, both in terms of brands and suppliers such as Electrolux, Husqvarna, Avient, Engel and Manfred Hackl of Erema, who was named the Plastics Recycling Ambassador for 2023.

Karen Laird from Sustainable Plastics has a rundown of the winners here.

But I also found this detail on the trophies handed out at PRSE in Amsterdam to be fitting: Each trophy has a base that was 3D printed with 100 percent recycled ABS from auto instrument panels. They also have a multicolor top, laser cut from compressed high density polyethylene caps collected from beach cleanups.

The American Mold Builders Association is marking its 50th anniversary this year, and the message from its annual meeting was one focused on unity.

Mold builders, in general, tend to be small businesses with one or two manufacturing sites and fewer than 100 employees. That makes it hard to stand out, PN's Catherine Kavanaugh wrote from its meeting in Grand Rapids, Mich. But AMBA leaders say all those shops can stand together instead.

"Our biggest competitive advantage is one another," AMBA Managing Director Kym Conis said. "We need to pull together to power growth collectively."

When it was founded in 1973, AMBA consisted mostly of mold makers based in the Chicago area who met at a bar. Now the organization has more than 270 member companies located in 33 states.

"It's through the power of the network that we have withstood the last 50 years and many trials and tribulations. That is what will help us collectively get better," Conis said.