Plastic Possibilities: Recent Episodes
Informa Markets – Engineering
The editors of PlasticsToday speak with newsmakers and industry experts about developments and trends in the plastics industry and the various end markets it serves.
As brand owners and OEMs race to meet sustainability goals, it makes eminent sense to design sustainability into a product at its inception rather than waiting to deal with it at the end of its life cycle. Michael Kiely, Principal Device Development Engineer at Jabil Healthcare, led the development of the Design for Sustainability process at his company. In this podcast, he outlines his approach and explains how this organizational change can help deliver long-term cost savings.
ICIS analyst Jeremy Pafford recaps resin pricing trends in the first half of this year and outlines what might be ahead in the next six months.
Our guest this month is Jeremy Pafford, Head of North America, Market Development, at business intelligence firm ICIS. As always, we began our conversation with a recap of resin pricing trends in the previous month and a look at what might be in store in the months ahead. Pafford also discussed a proposed ruling from the Securities and Exchange Commission that involves calculating companies’ carbon footprints. This could have a significant impact on your business, but, if you play your cards right, it could also provide you with a competitive advantage.
In last month’s Resin Report Monthly Edition podcast, my guest Joseph Chang described a volatile market in terms of resin pricing and availability. Has anything changed? Is the merry month of May living up to its name? We checked in with Emily Friedman at business intelligence firm ICIS to find out.
Joseph Chang, Global Editor of ICIS Chemical Business, shares insights on trends in the plastics resin market.
On its face, the Plastic Credit Exchange (PCX) sounds a lot like a carbon offset scheme. You purchase credits equal to the amount of plastic waste you produce, and the PCX invests those credits to offset your activity. Yes, the concept does borrow from carbon offset programs, but it differs in its fundamentals, transparency, and execution, according to PCX founder Nanette Medved-Po. In this episode of Plastic Possibilities, she explains how.
Rui Tocha, General Manager of Engineering and Tooling from Portugal, talks about the cluster's ability to provide turnkey solutions across the value chain, supporting global customers from product development and mold design to finished product.
Have you heard of LiquiGlide? It's a kind of miracle coating for containers that makes nearly 100% of viscous products that consumers struggle dispensing to slide off surfaces cleanly as if by magic from bottles, tubes, and other type of containers. These include lotions, creams, toothpaste, conditioners, ketchup, and other products. It turns out that familiar usage only scratches the surface of what this technology developed in the labs of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) brings to the table. In this 14-minute podcast, LiquiGlide CEO Dave Smith discusses... A thumbnail history of the technology; Colgate’s groundbreaking toothpaste bottle; Moving products such as thick concentrates from squeeze bottles to jars; Innovative new ready-for-market LiquiGlide-optimized packaging; Emerging markets for the coating such as catheters, medical devices, and processing operations.
Resin pricing has reached near-historic levels over the past few months, as reported in our frequent https://www.plasticstoday.com/resin-pricing (updates) on PlasticsToday. Hurricane Ida did not affect resin capacity as much as the freak February storm did, but it has aggravated the difficult supply and demand dynamics that plastics processors continue to wrestle with. To learn more, we spoke with Zachary Moore, Deputy Managing Editor, Americas, of ICIS, a business intelligence resource on the global chemical and energy markets. Moore has been working in the petrochemicals industry for the past 11 years, and in this podcast he shares his insights on where we stand today and what we should expect in the weeks and months ahead.
Anantshree Chaturvedi, head of FlexFilms Intl., the global flexible packaging division of UFlex, talks eco-responsibility, digitization, investments, and new products all aligned with sustainability. As the global films supplier within the broad portfolio of India-based vertically integrated flexible packaging manufacturer https://www.uflexltd.com/ (Uflex), https://www.flexfilm.com/ (FlexFilms Intl.'s) pioneering breakthroughs reach back more than 25 years. In 1995 the company was honored by the Recycle ’95 Davos Global Forum for Best Paper Award for “Recycling of Mixed Plastic Waste”. That forward-thinking legacy continues today under the guidance of Anantshree Chaturvedi, FlexFilms’ vice chairman and CEO. His philosophy for business and for life? “Where focus goes, energy flows.” In this interview, Chaturvedi discusses issues and developments that center on a circular economy for packaging… The “soul” of FlexFilms; The role of digital currency and the digitization of packaging; Major new capital investments for producing biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) and PET (BOPET); Exciting new films using plant-enzyme based biodegradation and nanotechnology; Plastic bans, consequences, and the need for a balanced approach to sustainability.
Expert Robert Lilienfeld summarizes the eco-state of flexible packaging’s past, highlights the present, and predicts the future.
Senior Director of Business Development at Curbell Plastics, Keith Hechtel shares current and emerging developments in polymers benefiting the mobility, medical, and other sectors in this 20-minute conversation.
Berry Global CEO Tom Salmon talks about beating earnings expectations for six consecutive quarters, the challenges and opportunities for the plastics industry, and his company's commitment to the circular economy.
The winter storm in late February that shut down approximately 80% of US resin production has had a tremendous impact on resin pricing, but several other challenges, including ongoing pandemic-related labor issues, rising consumer demand for plastic products, and even the containers shortage, have roiled the spot resin markets. In this podcast, supply chain expert Ambrose Conroy, founder and CEO of business consultancy Seraph, shares insights on how we got here and what we can expect to see in the weeks and months ahead.
PlasticsToday editor Norbert Sparrow interviews Perc Pineda, PhD, Chief Economist at the Plastics Industry Association, on how the plastics processing sector weathered 2020 and what might be in store in 2021.