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Heyyyyyyy! I just booked my flights to Orlando to speak at Sustainability in Packaging, Feb. 22nd-24th. Hurray!

AND, drum roll please, DA BEARS! It is going to be an awesome showdown between the Packers and the Bears—I can’t wait!

Sooo today is going to be a longer post, providing feedback from Sustainable Plastics Packaging and the Walmart SVN I attended the second week of December.

Let’s see…I know I summarized most of the SPP conference…where did I leave off…

That’s right: My December 29th post finished with my comments about Brandimage—an industrial designer firm, which developed a silly molded pulp water bottle.

The next presenter was Patty from Klockner Pentaplast—she has always been very nice to me and when I found out she was presenting at the same conference I emailed her saying good luck and explaining how nervous I was. She replied that I should think of the audience as the fathers, brothers, daughters, mothers—real people— they are and how I wouldn’t be nervous presenting in front of my own mother, sister, etc.; therefore, why should I be nervous presenting in front of these people? I thought that was really awesome advice…

ANYWAY, Patty gave a really great presentation insofar as she made an argument for plastic packaging in the context of sustainability. By describing a case study in which her company and its partner worked with a pizza producer to redesign its packaging to be more efficient, Patty illustrated how in switching the fiber-based box for a flexible plastic tray and lid, the shelf life of the pizza itself was greatly extended. Because a TON of our natural resources are consumed in the production of food, it is super duper important to ensure that the package medium used to get the foodstuff from the point of production to consumption is efficient and protects the product from spoilage and other health/quality concerns. PlasticsNews reporter Mike Verespej does a great job tying Patty’s argument that packaging can reduce total system waste i.e. food spoilage, into some of the other points made throughout the conference in this article.

And before I forget, it is important to understand that fiber-based pizza boxes are not usually accepted for recycling due to the high concentration of food contamination; be it plastic or paper, the liklihood that this packaging type is or will be recycled is very, very low, due to the economics of cleaning this material for reprocessing.

AND I loved Patty’s reference to “Frustration Free” packaging. As most of you know, I represent a thermoformer of clamshells, which are often times blamed for igniting RAGE in consumers due to their inability to penetrate the cold, plastic exterior of the package to get to the product itself. I wrote a satirical piece on wrap rage in the perceptive section of PlasticsNews; check it out here, it’s sort of funny.

Anyway, Amazon.com came out with “Frustration Free” packaging, which supposedly is mostly fiber-based and allows consumers to easily remove their products, without falling into the much-feared WRAP RAGE state of confusion. The specific example she gave were for CDs: previously packaged in a plastic clamshell to ensure product protection throughout the shipping supply chain, Amazon now packages CDs in a paper envelope with padding. According to customer accounts, numerous CDs were received broken, which ultimately resulted in more supply chain waste when compared with the plastic clamshell package that resulted in no product rejects. Go figure! I guess it depends what your priorities are: an intact product or a package that allows you to tear into it with your bear claws…

OH, before I forget, Mark of Brandimage did make some really great points about how consumers make decisions. He referenced Harvard academic Zaitman, who spent extensive time researching how consumers react to ads and products, concluding that most consumers’ decisions to buy or not to buy are based on 5% conscious thought and 95% unconscious thought. CRAZY! So much for market research, ha! No, but in all seriousness, I do think there is something to say with how a lot of our decisions are based on emotion instead of logical reasoning. After all, I really don’t think I need a crystal Chicago skyline paperweight, but when I saw it at the checkout counter just staring at me in all its reflectivity and gloss, I couldn’t help myself! So yea, he called this immeasurable reality between conscious and unconscious thought in the context of dictating consumers’ reactions to products, “creative economy.”

OK, next I want to talk about Terry of the Shelton Group. Her company provides LCA software that allows product producers to quantify the environmental profile of their products in the design phase. Like COMPASS, this software allows you to build a product archetype i.e. toaster, and then manipulate different aspects of the product i.e. material and/or electrical components, to see where your environmental “hot spots” are in order to work to elivaite said hot spots in your supply chain. So, if you were sourcing your toasters from aluminum mined in the Far East (I am being vague because I have NO idea how this resource is procured for industry) and found out that the process of aluminum production for your toaster results in the highest concentration of VOC emissions, or something, you could choose to source your aluminum from a recycled aluminum mill domestically located, thereby reducing the total supply chain and overall “carbon footprint” of the product. She also referenced the Storyofstuff.com, which is a cartoony representation of the inefficiencies of most product productions’ supply chain. Check out there most recent cartoon, the Story of Electronics, here.

Terry suggested that from a competitive standpoint, one could use this software to conduct LCAs of a concept vs. a manufactured good vs. your competitor's good and make an argument depending on the software data output in the context of sustainability.

OH, and for more information on this product LCA software (she did some live demos and it seems AWESOME), visit sustainableminds.com and sign up for their free webinars.

Next I want to summarize Sean of ModusLink’s presentation, as it was the first time I was ever introduced to such a macrocosm view of “sustainability.” For those of you unfamiliar, ModusLink is a company that specializes in taking consumer electronic products from the point of conception i.e. an awesome new invention or product, to the point of production through fulfillment, distribution, and consumption. Because most of their clients are large consumer electronic manufacturers, which is itself an extremely competitive market, ModusLink uses various tools that allow them to take a supply-chain approach and determine the most efficient, and therefore “sustainable” way to move product throughout the supply chain. In order to put the audience in a total supply-chain frame of mind, Sean gave the following example of how manufacturing, assembly, logistics, and environment must all be taken into account when assessing a product's total supply chain:

Ex1: Overseas manufacturing of product and packaging

Low cost of labor
Low raw material costs
High logistics costs
High green house gas emissions

VS.

Ex2: Domestic manufacturing of product and packaging

High cost of labor
High material costs
Low logistic costs
Low GHG emissions

In a nut shell: there is always a tradeoff; ModusLink will assess the tradeoffs via fancy software and present clients with the most efficient option for supply chain management.

The software cited during Sean’s presentation, which I know so little about, are:
Lllamasoft/Tableau/CAD/ESKO.

And that’s the last presentation of the day I saw! I skipped out and had non-hotel produced food for the first time in days with Sean!

And again, for more feedback on this conference, check out the editorials in PlasticsNews!

AND, to end today's post, check out this abstract art collection of environmental disaster photographs. My favorite is the "Facial Tissues" image showing the pollution resulting from pulp mills in the production of Kleenex and what not.

Tootles!

Hello and happy Friday! I am taking a much-needed break from sketching Dordan’s new website “information architecture,” which is really just a fancy way of saying website organization and navigation. For those of you who are considering launching a new website or redesigning an existing one, I thoroughly recommend the following—I would have had no idea what to do without these sources!

Steve Krug’s Don’t Make me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

Rosenfeld’s and Morville’s Information Architecture for the World Wide Web

As an aside, yesterday I went to The Brat Stop, which is sort of a historical icon on the border of Illinois and Wisconsin in Kenosha. It was AWESOME—I felt like I walked into an 80’s movie! I had the best garlic Bratwurst that I piled sky-high with raw onions! If you are ever in the area, I suggest you make a stop—the fried cheese curds are reason enough!

OH, and while there, I discovered this wonderful piece of art: a 3D sculpture of the Chicago Bear mascot hung with a noose. Those jerks…we will see Sunday; Go BEARS!



OK, so today I’m going to discuss the Walmart Sustainable Value Network meeting I attended in Rogers, Arkansas, December 14th, 2010. For those of you unfamiliar, Walmart hosts bi-annual meetings for its “preferred suppliers,” wherein members are updated on Walmart’s sustainability initiatives. These meetings also serve as a platform where suppliers can asks questions and get answers in real time.

Shall we begin?

December 14th, 2010
Sam’s Clubs Headquarters, Rogers, Arkansas
Walmart’s winter SVN meeting

The first topic introduced at the meeting was the new “Sustainability Leadership” team at Walmart. For various reasons, there had been some dramatic restructuring of the sustainability team. New names were introduced, accompanied by new faces and punctual speeches.

After each new team member had said his/her part, the host began explaining some revisions to the metrics of the Walmart Scorecard.

To begin, the Scorecard was put into its intended context; that is, to assist suppliers in helping Walmart achieve its 20 million metric ton GHG emissions reduction target via overall packaging reductions, among other things. Consider the following statements:

By January 2011, Walmart suppliers should provide companywide emissions reductions through packaging improvements.

By mid 2012, SKU-level reductions in emissions for companies/divisions/and categories should be reported.

The reporting audience is intended to be a compilation of the following: The buyer/supplier/management/SVN/etc.

I do not know what the status of these suggestions are, however.

Next, the host explained that contrary to popular belief, it is not just Scorecard completion that will influence a suppliers’ standing within the system, but the result of how the supplier uses the Scorecards’ data output. In other words, in completing one’s Scores, a supplier is granted access into how to improve said Score; be it through changing materials or the way in which the fulfilled package cubes out, it is only when you complete a Score that you can begin to understand how to improve it.

Next was an explanation of the “cube utilization” metric within the packaging Scorecard; this attempts to quantify how the relationship between the product volume and package AND fulfilled package and transport packaging informs its overall supply chain efficiency and therefore sustainability.

Previously suppliers had been required to provide the cube utilization for the selling unit and transport unit. In other words, you first had to determine the ratio between product and package in the context of volume for the selling unit i.e. fulfilled package, AND the ratio between the packed out product and its transport shipping in the context of volume. In a nut shell: cube utilization tries to see how efficiently the product exists within the package and how efficiently the package exists within the transport packaging.

NOW, in the name of simplicity, suppliers only have to provide information on the selling unit cube utilization, thereby eliminating an entire calculation of transport cube utilization. These are the notes I have from this discussion; hopefully you can make more sense out of them than I can…

Cube utilization:

Selling unit + transport unity--> pallet load efficiency

*Volume of transportation cube utilization

Volume of transport unit/volume of product

Next, the host explained that while previously suppliers had to enter two separate Scores for the merchandise unit and the unit for sale, now they only have to enter one for the unit for sale. In other words, instead of having the supplier treat the same product that is sold in different parts of the same store as two different products by entering two different Scores, now the supplier can report one Score, for both SKUs. After all, the selling unit is the same if it is sold as a unit for sale within its category or as a promotional merchandise unit; therefore, why double the work?

Lastly, it was articulated that Walmart now has devoted an entire team to helping suppliers with the Scorecard, contacted via the retail link of the Scorecard support. Seeing as how the above described changes to the Scorecard metrics are just as impossible to write about as they are to truly understand, I am glad that Walmart has made this investment!

Tune in Monday to learn about updates with Walmart’s Supplier Sustainability Assessment, its latest goals, and its Sustainability Index!

Have a great weekend. And go BEARS!!!

Hey!

I only have a second until Dordan’s website designer gets here (we are redesigning our entire website, exciting!) but I wanted to share the following with you:

I have good and bad news…let’s do the bad first.

Apparently, as per PlasticNews’ The Plastic Blog, an anti-plastic “documentary” is hitting select American theaters tomorrow. Boo. More emotionally manipulative and scientifically obscure, dare a say, propaganda? I wonder who produced this film…all I know is: where is the plastics lobby?

Check out a trailer here.

And for the good news: Tomorrow on Modern Marvels on the History Channel is a segment on plastic packaging! Check out a summary here.

OH, and the green drinks (Foresight) networking event was AWESOME. I will give you the skinny tomorrow, along with the much anticipated Walmart SVN feedback.

Happy almost Friday day!

HIIIII!

I have some exciting news!!! The interview conducted after my presentation at Sustainable Plastics Packaging is now live on Plastics News' website!!!

Aside from the awesome freeze-frame mugshot, I think it is quite good! Check it out here.

AND, I am just about finished summarizing the happenings of the Walmart SVN... I will post them tomorrow; I just didn't want to over-bombard you with goodness!

Have a lovely day!

Hello 2011!!!

I am back from beautiful Mexico and am happy to report that I have beaten my addiction to Chap Stick; all it took was some fun in the Mexican sun. Hurray!

Dordan started off 2011 with a bang, thanks to the January 3rd print addition of the lovely PlasticsNews.

For starters, lil ole’ me was quoted several times (10 in fact!) in regard to my presentation at Sustainable Plastics Packaging, as reported in Mike Verespej’s “Container Recycling Effort Remains Daunting.” To read the piece in all its glory, click here.

THEN, Dordan was given an entire half-page spread in the special report “Plastics and Packaging,” where reporter Dan Hockensmith summarizes our interview during Pack Expo 2010. They include a picture and everything! It is the most Dordan-centric editorial we have received thus far, so we are thrilled! Click here for the full article.

Thanks PlasticsNews!!!

Next week's post will provide the second portion of my feedback from Sustainable Plastic Packaging and begin discussing the Walmart SVN that I attended December 14th. Sorry, trying to play catch up!

Hey! For those of you that have your toes in B2B marketing, check out all the tools available for download here. I found the "helpful documentation" to be super helpful when trying to design an integrated marketing campaign…

So this is random but we have suspended composting Dordan’s food and yard waste for the winter because it seems as though the microorganisms are hibernating! As it stands, it looks more like a pile of stuff than a home-grown pile of compost! C’est le vie!

I will keep you updated on Dordan’s social and environmental sustainability efforts as they unfold and progress into 2011, but in the mean time, feel free to peruse the partially complete description of our goals here.

Okkkk so where were we? That’s right, SPP feedback.

After I drank a celebratory beer following my presentation, I returned to the conference, where Scott Steele of Plastics Technologies explained how reducing packaging may not always be the best approach to cost savings/sustainability. He spoke specifically of the dramatic material reductions in the PET bottle, which anyone can tell you have been down gauged to the extreme; just ask my 95 year-old grandmother! His argument was actually very powerful because he explained that if you reduce the material consumed per package as an attempt of saving green, then due diligence must be taken throughout the production and distribution supply chain in order to ensure no damage to the product (or anything else) arises from this packaging reduction. I know this is a little crazy but he even referenced a store clerk dying, heaven forbid, because the bottles had been down-gauged to the point that they could not support the top load of the skid, which all came crashing down after the PE shrink wrap was removed…yikes!

By the by, all the presentations are available for download here.

The last presentation of the day was JoAnne Hines, the “Packaging Diva,” who discussed the Sun Chip compostable bad “situation.” I had heard bits and pieces about the Packaging Diva over the year so I was thrilled to see her in the flesh! She was a very comfortable public speaker and I enjoyed her sarcasm! Basically she discussed the Sun Chips compostable bag innovation/market flop, and what that says about the intersection between sustainability/packaging/consumer preferences. For those of you unfamiliar, the Sun Chip compostable bag, launched on Earth Day in 2010 (I think) by Frito-Lay, resulted in declining sales across all chip style categories because consumers complained that the compostable bag was “too noisy.” Just youtube Sun Chips compostable bag and you will be overwhelmed with the negative feedback generated via consumers/social networking sites.

All in all, a good presentation and a favorable one to end the day on!

The second day of the conference began with a presentation from an Industrial Designer from Brandimage—Desgrippes & Laga. He was charming and had a very good on-stage presence. However, being a designer, his assumptions about what is “green” were more so based on generic understandings then sound science. Perhaps a discussion of one of his companies’ new concepts will speak to this point…

Brandimage has created a molded pulp water bottle that has a plastic laminate inside the bottle, to keep the liquid from leaching through the paper. From a design standpoint, it looks pretty cool, because the bottles actually lay flat throughout production and it is not until you force water inside that its shape takes form. However, as an attempt to be more “sustainable” than the classic PET bottles, there are many problems. For instance, the weight of a molded pulp water bottle filled would dramatically exceed the weight of the down gauged PET bottles of today’s market; therefore, the energy required to move the bottles from the point of production through distribution would exceed that of PET bottles. Next, because of the plastic laminate on the inside of the bottle, these disposable containers (I don’t see how they could be resused…) can’t be recycled. Because NAPCOR and others have invested a considerable amount in the development of the PET recycling infrastructure (PET bottles are the highest recycled plastic container in North America), it doesn’t make sense to introduce an alternative material into the bottle market. In other words, because the recovery infrastructure already exists for PET bottles, but doesn’t for laminated paper products, it does not make sense to replace PET bottles with molded pulp ones in the context of end-of-life management.

After he presented I told him that I thought he did a great job, but that his molded pulp bottle concept was really silly. He was a good sport about it!

OK, I know I have a lot more updates to rally to you all, but I leave for Mexico tomorrow for VACATION!!!!! Therefore, I wanted to leave you with something a little more…something.

First, watch “The Future of Food;” it will blow your mind.

Next, visit The Cosmetic Database and search by product brand i.e. Burts Bees, or product type i.e. mascara. You will be shocked!

Then, read “Poorly Made in China."

And lastly, read this Chicago Tribue article.

If you do so in that order, you will feel as though I did last week—terrible terrible terrible! I am not trying to be a weirdo but being a sustainability coordinator for a plastic packaging company allows you to make arguments for business practices in the context of ethics; be it workers rights, the environment, whatever. That being said, when I come across things like “The Future of Food” and a database for cosmetics that details all the terrible things in the products we consume each day AND then find out that the water I have been drinking for the last 5 years has cancer causing agents in it you begin to wonder about this whole sustainability jazz. Trust me, I am genuinely a die-hard environmentalist; I have always been and will always continue to be so. However, while I truly enjoy working towards a more sustainable packaging industry, I find myself struggling with the following ethical conundrum: if the products that we are packaging in our “sustainable material” are themselves harmful (cosmetics, food, etc.) to the person consuming them, the environment, and the social fabric in which it was produced and distributed, then why so much hype on the sustainability of a package? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about how products themselves are manufactured i.e. what goes into them and what comes out, then how in reducing a package by X amount, you get more product per pallet, cheaper shipping, and so on?!?

I’m sorry—I swear—I am never a Debby downer but for some reason this whole dealio is really bothering me. I am meeting with my old ethics professor the third week of January so hopefully he can help set me straight…

Let us end our sort of depressing post with the following even more depressing post from Enviroblog, which details the worst environmental disasters of 2010. Happy New Year! Ha.

Cheers!

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here's a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Greetings!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! I know I was working at Dordan this time last year but boy howdy do I feel extra unmotivated this time around! I have even put off blogging—one of my favorite work past times—because I just don’t feel like it. Hopefully I will resume my normal workhorse-ness after the New Year…

In my time-killing attempts this morning, I came across the Pack Expo Report, which is basically a summary of all the happenings of this enormous event. While flipping through its contents, I was delighted to discover that Dordan got a shout out! Check it our here on page 16 and 17. They even include our comparative spec sheet from our Bio Resin Show N Tell! Neato!

I know I promised you all some SPP and Walmart SVN feedback, so here it goes:

Sustainable Plastics Packaging 2010, Crain Communications, December 8th and 9th, Atlanta

I arrived at the hotel that was hosting the conference early so I could work on my presentation and meet with the IT gentleman to make sure everything worked correctly. That night I met with three reporters from Crain, all of whom were very nice! I didn’t know this at the time but Crain Communications houses all these fine publications:

• Advertising Age
• American Coin-Op
• American Drycleaner
• American Laundry News
• Automobilwoche
• Automotive News
• AutoWeek
• Business Insurance
• BtoB
• Crain's Chicago Business
• Crain's Cleveland Business
• Crain's Detroit Business
• Crain's New York Business
• Creativity
• European Plastics News
• European Rubber Journal
• InvestmentNews
• Media Business
• Modern Healthcare
• Modern Physician
• Pensions & Investments
• Plastics News
• Plastics News China
• Plastics & Rubber Weekly
• Rubber & Plastics News
• Staffing Industry Analysts
• TelevisionWeek
• Tire Business
• Urethanes Technology International
• Waste & Recycling News
• Workforce Management

CRAZY!

Anyway, one of the gentlemen I met with, who was in charge of the conference itself, was one of the founders of PlasticsNews in the early eighties! So let’s just say, these guys know a thing or two about a thing or two as it pertains to plastic and packaging!

After I ran through my presentation and made the necessary tweaks (I got the presentation down from 80 slides to 62, simplified my language, etc.), I was off to bed to prepare for a very busy and thought-provoking day!

The first presentation on the 8th was Suzanne Shelton’s (SHELTON GROUP) “Challenging the Perception that Plastic is Bad."

What was cool about this presentation, aside from the fact that it drove home the point that people like buying products that are “environmentally friendly” yet don’t really know what that means, was that it showed live footage of consumers talking about packaging. Imagine a round table where a handful of “normal” consumers are asked questions about plastic packaging and the environment and then the fun that is their responses. Good times! What I took away from this presentation is that depending on your product category (dairy, electronics, detergent, etc.), certain sustainability attributes—be it “made with recycled content” or “biodegradable” or “no GMOs”—provoke consumers’ willingness to buy when compared with products that have no environmental marketing claims. What is important to remember, Shelton emphasized, is that preferences for environmental attributes change between product category groups; therefore, when designing new product packaging, marketers should be familiar with what environmental buzz words consumers identify with within their product category.

Next, Aaron Brody of Packaging/Brody Inc. presented on “Packaging Role in the World Food Crisis.” Because I was busy rehearsing my presentation in my mind, I didn’t get all I should have out of this presentation, which I heard was really good! All I really remember is that Brody made an argument that the global production and distribution of food stuff was much more sustainable than locally sourced food stuff… check out the presentation here for more information.

I missed the next several presentations because I went to my room to present again and again and again to make sure I had it down. Nothing like being over prepared!

And then I presented. And it was really fun! And I think the crowd was engaged…at least as engaged as you can be when discussing recycling!

After I presented, the previous two presenters and myself came on stage for a “panel discussion.” And guess what: most if not ALL of the questions were directed at me! I think this means that the content was interesting and thought provoking. I felt as though I was playing professor, which is super awesome, being that I wanted to be one! I was really glad too because no one asked me a question I could not answer…there was a Chinese woman in the crowd who I may have offended in my discussion of shipping the majority of our post consumer plastic to Asia due to the extremely low cost of manual separation compared with the high cost of automated sorting technologies in North America…

AND even more exciting, after my presentation, this gentleman from NURRC approached me and invited me to tour his plant! Apparently NURRC is a joint venture with Coca Cola that recycles ALL PET; bottles AND thermoforms. He said that they have no problem sorting the PET thermoforms from those destined for landfill via their sorting technology and that he would love to host me at their plant. AWESOME. Check out their website here.

WOWZA—in all my procrastinating it’s time for me to go! I will continue this post tomorrow!

As the work day now officially comes to a close, I wanted to wish you all, my packaging and sustainability friends, Merry Merry Christmas!!!! I wish you all a very happy Holiday full of Christmas cheer. Safe travels everyone! We will resume our conversation on Monday!

Xoxo,

Chandler

Wow I knew I hadn’t posted in a bit but almost 10 days YIKES!

Before I delve into the intricacies of the SPP and Walmart SVN updates, I wanted to share with you some random articles I have come across over the last two weeks. This may be old news to you, my packaging and sustainability friends, but nonetheless, I wanted to post it to my blog for future reference.

First, check out this article from PlasticsNews published November 8th:

China issues rules for importing whole PET scrap bottles

By Steve Toloken | PLASTICS NEWS STAFF

Posted November 8, 2010

NINGBO, CHINA (Nov. 8, 2 p.m. ET) -- The Chinese government has issued long-awaited rules detailing how companies can import whole PET scrap bottles.

The rules, issued in October and discussed by government officials and companies at a Nov. 4 conference in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, have been closely watched globally, as China is the world’s largest importer of scrap plastics.

China had previously allowed only imports of recycled PET that had already been ground or processed in some way, because government officials said they were concerned about the country in effect importing materials that were not clean and polluted the country.

But with China’s huge demands for new sources of raw materials, particularly in its polyester fiber manufacturing industry, officials had said last year they planned to relax the rules.

The new rules place some limits on who can bring in the material: they require that importers have existing facilities and a current license to import recycled plastic, that they be located in a district designated for recycling and have imported at least 10,000 metric tons of material in each of the last three years.

For companies outside those existing recycling districts, they must have imported at least 30,000 metric tons of materials in each of the last three years. Licenses will be given by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The issue has been closely watched for its potential impact on recycling streams worldwide, and for its potential to increase China’s already significant imports of PET. The country, for example, has taken more than half of the recycled PET bottles collected in the United States for each of the last four years.

One recycling industry executive with factories in both the United States and China said she did not think the changes would lead to significantly more recycled PET exports to China, because the existing supply chains were already well-established, but it would likely raise prices for the bottles and lead to more competition among buyers.

Kathy Xuan, president of Romeoville, Ill.-based Parc Corp., said the changes could mean that Hong Kong, a key intermediary point for shipments, would likely be bypassed in favor of direct imports.

Now, Hong Kong firms will import whole bottles and either reprocess them, or, in something that is not entirely legal but an open secret among recyclers in China, break them into smaller loads for shipment through the porous ports of neighboring Guangdong province.

Xuan, who is also a board member of the Plastic Recycling Committee of the China Plastic Processing Industry Association, said the new rules would likely raise prices for bottles because more suppliers will be competing for them.

The biggest beneficiaries would likely be those in more direct control of bottle collection, such as the materials recovery facilities in the United States, Xuan said, speaking in an interview at the 5th China Plastics Exhibition and Conference, or Replas, held Nov. 4-5 in Ningbo. Replas is sponsored by CPPIA.

Parc also has recycling facilities in Qingdao, Shandong province.

Other Chinese recyclers at the conference also felt new rules would bring more buyers into the market, raise prices at some points in the supply chain and potentially allow end-users like polyester fiber manufacturers more direct access to materials.

If those fiber makers can legally import bottles, they may set up their own recycling operations and start buying directly, rather than working through existing recyclers, said a saleswoman for a Hong Kong-based recycling firm with operations in Guangdong province. She asked to remain anonymous.

Some smaller Chinese recyclers at the conference who process whole PET bottles collected within the country urged government officials to relax the rules for an import license, saying they had additional capacity and could cleanly process more material.

Chinese recyclers also questioned government officials about a requirement in the new rules requiring that only “clean” bottles be imported, saying that it is not possible, outside of a few sources in Japan, to import bottles that are entirely clean. An MEP official suggested that language could be adjusted.

The Chinese government also unveiled rules at the conference to set up a licensing system to allow more direct imports of polycarbonate compact disc scrap.

This is pretty cool because as articulated in my Recycling Report, right now the demand for post consumer PET exceeds the supply 3:1. If we were to limit the amount of PC PET bales exported to international markets each year, more RPET supply would be available, thereby driving down the price.

As an aside, and I don’t know how much validity this has, but I heard that because the cotton crop failed in Asia this year, competition for PET bottle bales collected in North America is very aggressive as this feedstock can be remanufactured into clothing in the absence of cotton. Go figure!

OK…in a previous post when I was deep into my bio-resin investigation I referenced a Pittsburgh life cycle study that compared the environmental performance of bio-resins vs. traditional resins. According to this study, bio-resins consumed more energy, resources, etc. in the production and released more bad stuff into the environment throughout its production than traditional fossil fuel-based resins. I remember commenting that the world of bio-resins is super confusing because every study you read contradicts every other study you read! And to that point, check out this November 24th Plastics News article that contradicts the findings of the Pittsburgh study:

Researcher questions validity of Pittsburgh life cycle study

By Mike Verespej | PLASTICS NEWS STAFF

Posted November 24, 2010

EAST LANSING, MICH. (Nov. 24, 1 p.m. ET) -- A highly publicized study sends a misleading message about bioplastics because of what it omitted from their life cycle analysis, several assumptions that are not accurate, and the decision by the research team to mix potential impacts and create a weighted average.

The study, from the University of Pittsburgh, concluded that bioplastics are environmentally more taxing to produce than conventional plastics, in part because of the farming and energy-intense chemical processing needed to produce bioplastics.

“It simply is not credible to come up with one number for a bioplastic evaluation,” by giving each environmental factor an equal weight and adding them together to come up with “an average number,” said Bruce Dale, professor of chemical engineering and associate director of biobased technologies at Michigan State University.

Mixing different impacts of the materials on the environment and public health goes against recommendations for life cycle analysis from the International Standards Organization, Dale said in a Nov. 24 telephone interview.

Specifically, ISO 14044 says that “weighting … shall not be used in any comparison to be disclosed to the public.”

“The conclusions they made are misleading in the sense that you can’t actually even make the comparisons they make,” he said. “That’s like mixing impacts for apples, oranges, pears and bananas. I don’t think the study tells us much about which plastics are better for the environment than others,” Dale said.

“It’s impossible to see if their conclusions” standing up without analyzing whether those conclusions change when the different factors are weighted differently, he said.

Dale said the research team, led by University of Pittsburgh undergraduate student Michaelangelo Tabone, assumed incorrectly that data for polylactic acid could also be used for polyhydroxyalkanoate, and it excluded the actual use and disposable aspects of bioplastics from its analysis.

“The scope of each life cycle assessment was ‘cradle-to-gate,’ [but] including only the impacts resulting from the production of each plastic and not the use or disposal,” the authors said in discussing their report. “The LCAs in this study have a limited scope.

To be comprehensive, the use and end of life should be included in future studies. The exclusion of disposal scenarios affects conclusions regarding biodegradable polymers and commonly recycled plastics.”

The research team admitted that it used “the average impact from the PLA scenarios … as substitutes for PHA’s impacts on human health, respiratory effects, ozone depletion, and ecotoxicity [because] no life cycle inventory data were available for PHA within the ecoinvent database.”

“That was one more arbitrary illogical thing they did. They decided not to study the use and disposal aspects of bioplastics,” Dale said. “Another huge flaw is that there wasn’t any data for PHAs for them to make estimates for the impact categories, so they assumed that PLA data was appropriate for PHA.”

In addition, the research only looked at specific plastics resins, and not products. That is, researchers performed a LCA on each polymer’s preproduction, looking at the environmental and health effects of the use of energy, raw materials, and chemicals to create one ounce of plastic pellets. Then they checked each plastic in its finished form against principles of green design, including biodegradability, energy efficiency, wastefulness, and toxicity.

“They didn’t compare any type of products,” said Steve Davies, global marketing director for NatureWorks LLC in Minnetonka, which manufactures PLA. “They just compared the resins and not specific products. It didn’t look at how a bioplastics product is used and how it is disposed and that’s essential to a life cycle analysis.”

Davies said a second area where the study is “causing confusion and could be damaging” to bioplastics is that there is “no meaningful way to compare one ounce of pellets prior to molding” because it doesn’t take into account the density, thickness or stiffness of the final product.

“You need a comparison based on the functional performance of the product, not just a bucketful of chemicals,” he said.

Third, he took umbrage with how the study combined 10 different environmental and health impact factors to reach “a single, overarching conclusion. They weighed them all equally and just added them up. ISO methodology, in IS0 14044, says you don’t do that.”

The research assessed 10 different impact categories: acidification, carcinogenic human health hazards, ecotoxicity, eutrophication, global warming potential, noncarcinogenic human health hazards, ozone depletion, respiratory effects, smog, and nonrenewable energy use.

“The study doesn’t tell us much about which plastics were better and they have muddied the waters,” Davies said.

Specifically, the research report and news release from the University of Pittsburgh said conventional plastics are “environmentally less taxing to produce,” that “biopolymers are among the more prolific polluters on the path to production” and that bioplastics are “dirtier to produce” than petroleum-derived plastics because “the farming and energy-intense chemical processing needed to produce [bioplastics] can devour energy and dump fertilizers and pesticides into the environment.”

“They have made a mess that others now have to clean up,” said Michigan State bioplastics professor Dale, based in East Lansing, Mich.

The University of Pittsburgh study, conducted with support from the National Science Foundation and released Oct. 21, is scheduled to published in the environmental journal “Environmental Science and Technology.”

And last but not least but a fellow SPC member emailed me the following spec sheet, which lists specs for thermoform bales, after I presented in Atlanta on how we need to create specs for recycling thermoforms if we want to recycle them.

<a href="PET bale specsOK ">Check it out!

We will discuss my questions regarding this spec sheet, the SPP conference and the Walmart SVN, and much much more Monday!