Extrusion-Film & Sheet

Debating late into the night on August 31, the California state senate ultimately narrowly voted against two separate bans that would have had far-reaching effects on the plastics industry in the state, and ultimately across the U.S. A total of seven votes decided the outcome of the proposed plastic bag ban bill, AB 1998, while a bill that would have outlawed BPA in cups and bottles intended for children fell only two votes shy of passage.

So many things can go wrong during sheet extrusion that it's almost a miracle processors are able to produce as much good product as they do. Chatter marks can be a common problem when processing sheet, but with this checklist you'll be able to locate and fix a weak spot quickly. 

Update: The California state senate sent the proposed bag ban to defeat last night by a vote of 20-14, according to the Sacramento Bee.

DuPont has started ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) production at its Chinese joint venture Beijing Hua Mei Polymer Company Limited, with plans to market the EVA produced there under the Elvax brand. DuPont says the joint venture will supply a broad range of specialty EVAs targeting market segments like packaging, adhesives, wire and cable, footwear, renewable energy, and electronics.

Sand and extruded copolyester sheet combine for a flood wall that can go up more quickly and withstand water better than the hand-filled sand bags they're aiming to replace.

Introduced in 2003 but still gathering steam in the market are Tug & Tote bags, a patented way to simplify supermarkets' logistics with produce bags while also improving customers' experience. The processor and converter, Waverly Plastics, took time to listen to and learn from its customers, and the effort has paid off many times over.

In the April issue of MPW, our Notable Processors feature included a profile of Leon Farahnik, noting "he started a new company that eventually grew into Hilex-Poly, the world's largest processor of plastic shopping bags, leading the transition from paper to plastic bags at the country's grocery stores." Respectfully taking issue with the verb "leading" is Bob "Bagsy" Siegel.

A new acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) film is being promoted for use as a backing material in alternative energy solar cells or as a sheet for luxury car interiors. The products also enables multilayer printing to show uneven surfaces, mainly for building-related materials. Techno Polymer Co. Ltd.'s (Tokyo) ValueTech line has been launched as a new business.

Dow Chemical Co. (Midland, MI) is launching a line of polyolefin-based encapsulant films for photovoltaic (PV) modules, after adding a new production line at its Findlay, OH manufacturing plant for the new product in response to growing demand for PV specialty films.

Though still running strong, an almost 20-year-old film laminating line needed a helping hand to meet increased demand. As a result, food packaging processor C-P Flexible Packaging added another line from Davis-Standard to its arsenal.