Packaging

Houston—BPA has become the acronym of concern among consumers and regulators, but one company is pressing for greater awareness of another, EA, or estrogenic activity. BPA, short for Bisphenol A, is a chemical building block of the widely used engineering plastic polycarbonate (PC). PC has largely been pushed out of food-contact markets over concerns that the BPA within the material mimics the hormone estrogen, with deleterious impacts, particularly for younger populations.

Houston—Every other OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development) country besides the U.S. imposes fees that brand owners must pay to dispose of their products' packaging. That fact alone would suggest that America's approach to end-of-life packaging scenarios is untenable, and change does indeed seem inevitable, driven in part by what Victor Bell describes as a "perfect storm." Speaking at the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) International Polyolefins Conference (Feb.

Turns out rock band Pink Floyd was wrong, certainly with respect to the public's need for more information on recycling of plastics. At this week's Plastics Recycling 2010 conference in Austin, TX, there is an overwhelming consensus that, indeed, we do need some education.

Chicago-based Berlin Packaging has finalized its acquisition of packaging supplier All-Pak Inc., which is headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA. Together, the two companies have more than 40 sales and warehouse facilities throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and a broad line of glass, plastic, paper, and other rigid packaging products.

Sheet, compounds, and packaging products supplier Spartech Corp. (St. Louis, MO) will open a new technology center in St. Louis, combining its material, product, and packaging development centers into one location. The new center will expand to an 80,000- to 100,000-ft² facility that Spartech plans to have operational by mid-summer 2010.

Some plastics packaging processors' sustainability plans are further along than others. Among the pace setters is Innovia Films, which has earned CarbonNeutral certification for its range of cellulose-based NatureFlex coated biodegradable and compostable packaging films. 

Controlling material distribution on stretch blowmolding machinery, with outputs that can exceed one million bottles per day, can now be realized with the help of a new system developed by Agr International. The need for such control is only increasing as the weight and wall thickness of polyethyelene terephthalate (PET) bottles processed on these machines decreases at the same time as outputs increase.

Consumer and foodservice packaging major Pactiv has acquired thermoformer PWP Industries from holding company HPC Industries for $200 million. HPC is the holding company run by Leon Farahnik, who just two years ago sold his stake in the world's largest shopping bag processor, Hilex Poly, another company he founded.

The V-type screen changer from the Kreyenborg Group (Munster, Germany) already is established in a number of commercial extrusion lines processing PET, and now the first of these filters is in operation in a polyolefin line. The customer, a sheet processor, relies on the screenchanger to help it meet quality standards as it directly extrudes shredded HDPE blowmolded articles into thermoformable sheet for the automotive industry at a rate of 900 kg of HDPE processed/hour.

An update to its established TVE series of plastics recycling machinery will let companies re-use or source scrap plastics that contain much higher levels of ink, binding agents, other additives and incidental contaminating materials, according to Erema, a leading manufacturer of plastics recycling machinery.