Planes, plastics and pallet wrap: Three weeks on the road for PN

Willie Nelson couldn't wait to get on the road again. As for me, I'm OK for now.

Starting in late February, I took three work trips in three weeks. I was living out of a suitcase like a vacuum cleaner salesman in a classic black-and-white Hollywood comedy.

Here are some work and non-work takeaways from my journeys to Indiana, Philadelphia and San Diego.

In Connersville, Ind., materials firm Nova Chemicals has placed a big bet on the future of mechanical recycling. It has opened a plastic film recycling plant that will produce 150 million pounds of post-consumer recycled polyethylene resin per year.

While Nova owns the plant and the technology being used there, the site will be operated by Novolex Holdings, a major plastics packaging maker that has been a Nova customer for many years.

The plant occupies about one-third of a 1.5 million-square-foot building that previously was an automotive plant operated by Ford. The plant had been mostly vacant since 2008. It's now expected to employ 125.

The plant primarily is recycling linear low density PE pallet wrap from distribution centers operated by major retailers in the region. Most of the pallet wrap being used by the plant previously would have gone to landfills.

I was surprised by the plant's high level of automation. That might be a step in improving the profitability of a recycling operation.

Non-Work Item: On this trip, I stayed in nearby Richmond, Ind. Musicians ranging from Louis Armstrong to Lawrence Welk all made their first recordings at Gennett Studios in Richmond. I really hope Armstrong and Welk were there at the same time.

Welk: Is this your trumpet?

Armstrong: Yes. Is this your accordion?

Then it was off to Philadelphia for a few days at the Antec conference hosted by the Society of Plastics Engineers. There's nothing like talking with Ph.D. level polymer scientists to make you question your own intelligence. I think those folks would be surprised to see me completing a crossword puzzle.

My favorite Antec talk this year was by students from University of Massachusetts Lowell who injection molded a Croc shoes charm — officially called a Jibbitz — based on UMass Lowell mascot Rowdy the Riverhawk.

Students Abigail Mastromonaco, Daniela D'Alleva and Alex Rhodes did a great job, showing a full understanding of the project. The charm has been entered in SPE's Impact Injection Molding Performance Awards, a contest for students in plastics programs.

Non-Work Item: Being in Philly, I of course had to have a cheesesteak and go visit the Rocky Steps, made famous by Sylvester Stallone in the 1976 film Rocky. There's a statue of Stallone as Rocky at the top of the steps and also one at the bottom for those tourists who can't make the climb but still want to get a photo.

I proudly took a photo of the one at the top of the steps. And then I sat down for a few minutes to catch my breath.

My three-week plastics odyssey ended in San Diego, where Plastics News hosted our annual Executive Forum. We hadn't held the event in California for more than 10 years, so it was good to be back.

One highlight of the event was Kevin Kelly of Emerald Packaging addressing the challenges of making sustainable packaging and of doing business in California. Kurt Schuering of Nexeo Plastics and Angela Elsey of PCS Co. also gave great talks on workforce development.

Ashish Chitalia of Alvarez & Marsal covered the materials market, including a slide that showed plastics processors with reduced operating rates while their suppliers and customers have had higher operating rates.

It was a visual and statistical confirmation of the squeeze that PN readers often talk about. It took great restraint for none of our attendees to jump up and shout THAT'S WHAT WE'VE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS.

Non-Work Item: The weather was surprisingly cool and rainy for La Jolla, but we did have one good day that let our attendees get in a round of golf at the famous Torrey Pines golf course.

(The event was held at the Hilton Torrey Pines. There are worse ways to make a living.)

Most of our staff didn't golf, but we were glad to heckle PN national sales manager John Hickey from the comfort of (plastic) Adirondack chairs as he completed his round. That made for a nice start to my final week of travel.

A lot of plastics people travel a lot more than I do, but three trips in three weeks was plenty for me. I enjoyed seeing a lot of the hard-working people in our industry and seeing the sights of some different parts of the country.

I also came away with a renewed conviction that although the plastics industry still faces challenges, it's heading in the right direction.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to see how much it costs to ship a cheesesteak from Philly to Cleveland. Yo, Adrian!