The list of divisive topics to avoid for polite dinner conversation keeps growing. Besides the big basic four - politics, sex, religion and abortion - we have global warming, nuclear power and now fracking.
The green vilification of all things fossil fuel has fracking in their crosshairs. Check out the stories about fracking and peak oil in this newsletter:
http://webmailbb.juno.com/webmail/new/7?count=1336658819&randid=1826648719
The debate on peak oil is framed masterfully. Remonstrating is not an option. Anyone who does not agree with the premise of peak oil is an infidel and needs deprogramming. This must include the Wall Street Journal editorial staff who predicted there will be oil:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904060604576572552998674340.html
The plastic industry and the greens are insular and apparenty in parallel universes as evidenced by this story in Plastics News:
http://www.plasticsnews.com/headlines2.html?id=25382
So how is this relevant to plastics ? The debate about which feedstock choice for making plastic is sustainable is a hot topic. The true believer neo Malthusian greens even eschew bioplastics such as PLA made from plants.
In any case, Exxon and Chevron are confident enough about the continuing natural gas discoveries that they have commssioned capital intensive plants which will have a combined annual capacity of over 5 billion pounds. Note that they plan to make plastic from natural gas, not oil
On the ligher side -
Way back in 2004, Alan Greenspan advocated importation of liquified natural gas ( LNG ) as a remedy to the apparent finite dwindling supply of natural gas. He was concerned about the increasing cost of natural gas as a probable derailer of the economy. Was it implicit that consumption of natural gas was acceptable ?
At least somebody has a sense of humor about this subject:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/fracking-industry-now-largest-employer-of-recent-p,28131/
I'm just going to ignore it. Maybe it will go away.
Plastic made from oil is a popular misconception. There are many misperceptions about what plastic is made from. Bio-based plastics from plants are promoted as better for the environment because of their renewable sources vis-a-vis types of plastic made from non-renewable petroleum-based fossil fuels.
Let's not complicate the discussion with biodegradability.
Types of plastic can be derived from both plants and conventional feedstocks without being biodegradable. Braskem's so-called green plastics are plant plastics derived from cane sugar and are not biodegradable.
If plastic is not made from plants, plastic is made from either natural gas or naptha. Of course, neither is acceptable to the greens who love to vilify all things petroleum-based.
http://myplasticfreelife.com/2007/07/plastic-is-made-from-oil-you-knew-that/
The monomers such as propylene, ethylene, ethane, etc. are extracted to make polymers such as POLYethylene, POLYpropylene, etc. In the US, most plastic is made from natural gas. The resin producers simply take what they want from the natural gas pipeline and put the rest back into the pipeline.
The other choice of feedstock is naptha. Naptha is the creme de la creme of a barrel of oil and cannot be refined into gasoline or motor oil. Naptha is the feedstock of choice in the rest of the world because it is a by product of the refining process. So it is true that some plastics are made from oil, they are really made from an oil by-product.
Feel good press releases such as this one from Subway play into the public's ignorance about where plastics come from:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/subway-restaurant-chain-continues-to-live-green-with-salad-bowls-made-from-95-percent-recycled-materials-147592125.html.
Recycling PET ( symbol # 1 ) is great, but how can the claim of saving gallons and barrels of oil be true if the plastic resin is made from natural gas ? No matter. Perception and working the focus grouped search terms trumps reality every time. Besides, nobody fact checks.
Remember freshman econ about factors of production ? Where plastic is made and what plastic is made from influences the cost of plastic. Making plastic from oil is now more costly than making plastic from natural gas ( thanks, fracking ! ). Natural gas is now about $ 2 per MBTU and crude is over $ 100. See the feedstock imbalance ? There is a reason a globocorp like Dow is placing a huge capital investment to get the raw materials from lower cost natural gas.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/headlines2.html?id=25219
Coextruded packaging film manufacturers tell you the solution to your packaging pain must be multilayer film. Buyers of packaging films who don't challenge the assumption usually pay for for over spec'd films and fabulousness added. By convincing the technical buyers the film must be coextruded multilayer film, purchasing has fewer options to shop for a lower price.
An example of plastic film which absolutely had to be coex for years is surgical drapes - specifically nurses' back table cover and mayo stand covers. Back in the day when Eisenhower was president, somebody convinced American Hospital Supply that a lamination would prevent transfer of micro loads through a drape which consisted of a lamination of two films. The chances of 2 pinholes lining up being infinitesimal makes sense. Eventually the blue and white layers were coextruded and this became common practice. Realistically, a coex and mono film has an equal chance of a pinhole because both are melt extruded from a die. Today you can still encounter coex surgical drapes although most has transitioned to monolayer film.
So where are coxtruded films justifiable ? Where each layer has a specific job to do. The most common cotidien example is cereal liner film used to bag cereal via vertical form fill seal VFFS. The outer layer is HDPE. It provides the barrier to oxygen and moisture. It melts at about 50 degrees higher than the inner layer whose job description is to melt and caulk rapidly.
Barrier films for meat must also be coex. EVOH core layer dictates five layers. EVOH does the barrier work. Its rheology is so different than the outer sealing layer that two "tie layers" must be sandwiched in to take up the slack.
The old adage "ask somebody what they do for a living before you ask for advice" applies here. The capital equipment, or dies, for coex film is much more expensive than single monolayer. Anyone who invests in coextruded blown film equipment is going to promote it.
" Producers had + 3 and + 7 on the table for March, but the +7 was pushed to April, where we think it will die a slow death"
" + 3 cent has greater chance of happening than not " - CDI
The 50 + pages of the CDI March report must have been written by economists and accountants. What other explanation could there be for the language which basically said " it depends" and "on the other hand" which left them lots of ins and outs ? Reminds me of the law school exercise in which the prof makes everyone switch sides at an intense moment. After over an hour of parsing and a headache, I could have taken either side of the argument.
" ... so far this year margins have been a blowout"
With natural gas hovering in the low $ 2 range,
" The US with our ample amount of NGL cracker capacity has become one of the low cost producers in the world."
I was ROTFL a few weeks ago when a resin supplier told me with a straight face that the price of their captive feedstocks was partial justification for the PE resin increase. PULL-EEZ !
Buried on page 50 was the prediction that April would be stable and they are "pencilling in"
May down 3 and June down 3.
The short term official + 3 was apparently where the decision making dart landed.
So what to do ?
Only buy what you need in the short term.
The Ides of March is next Tuesday. The Ides of March is the day that Caesar was warned about by one of his seers. He didn't listen and look what happened to him. The prognosticators of what the major resin producers are going to do are once again all over the place as to what is and will be happening with polyethylene pricing. It's no wonder when the producers can't even get their supposedly collusive minds made up. Some of the producers say their price is going to go up three cents per pound others say five and there's one guy who says ten. Who to believe? The producers said they were going to go up $0.06 in January but they didn't go up at all. They rolled the January increase into February confidently saying they were going to, "Get all six this month." They got three. So now they're saying they want three, five and ten. Who knows?
"There's nothing justifying ( the increase ) from a raw material standpoint"
- Mike Burns
market analyst with Resin Technology, Inc.
China is apparently still nursing a wicked hangover from their New Year celebrations so they're not buying. Europe wishes it could blame how bad they're feeling on a hangover but they know it's much worse than that, so they're not buying. Due to the potential price increases South America has a bad case of the mananas, so they're not buying. Our business is pretty good right now so regrettably I'm buying but I'm confused as to what my price is and or will be. Even though domestic demand may be good the rest of the planet isn't buying. Natural gas is selling for $2.35 which is way down from where it was a couple of years ago. The majors say that they are paying more for ethylene and that's why I have to pay more for polyethylene. Odd thing is they are also the manufacturers of said ethylene. So why do the majors think they should get a price increase? It is a mystery.
My gut tells me (not pigeon guts mind you) that we are at or near the peak of the market so buy what you need and no more. Enjoy the ride down. It's going to be a fast one.
The shortest route to a good sustainability scorecard is source reduction.
New resins get the job done using less wall thickness in packaging applications. There is a definite trend towards using less, albeit slowly.
So what is holding back adoption of thinner packaging even after the efficacy of a thinner package has been proven through drop tests and shipping tests ?
Based on my own observations and experience, it is usually one of two fear factors:
Consumer will percieve the product as being cheaped out if the packaging is thinner. Marketing assumes this is the case without focus grouping or test marketing. For example, a very green manufacturer of organic granola who hates plastic got cold feet about using a thinner sealant layer. When you get down to brass tacks, it's not worth taking a chance at point of sale.
It's also not worth taking the chance that the packaging will fail during shipment. Seriously, what is your motivation to sponsor using less packaging if it fails ? If it fails you get blamed and lose your job.
We recently reduced the thickness of a frozen food bag to 3.5 mils from 5 mils. When we asked them why they were being so conservative and not cutting the gauge to 2.5 mils, they said they were happy enough and were not interested in further reductions due to the aforementioned fear factors.
If a resin is a bad actor at 3 mils it will not work at 5 mils either. If the right resin is matched to the application, less is needed. It's that simple. Many of these resins cost more per pound than a general purpose resin. If the extruder cannot pass along the cost to the end user, what is the incentive to inventory the upmarket resin ?
Sadly, the custom of selling film by the pound impedes progress. Even after showing the math on how much less the unit cost would be through more expensive thinner film, buyers often do not agree because they are inured to price per pound. Most extruders live and die by pounds shipped, so there is not much motivation to push downgauging or lightweighting.
All parties would benefit from a more expensive plastic film per pound offset by gauge reduction.
Here is a link to make the calculating easy:
http://www.brentwoodplastics.com/handy_math_wt_packages.html
Asking for " regular poly" film is like asking for a regular car, beer, soda, tape or wine.
The variation within the species of polyethylene film resins has evolved because different PE resins are made to do different jobs. Just as one would not use a subcompact car to do the same job as a passenger van, it does not make sense to use the same PE resin made for dry cleaner bags to package 50 pounds of rock salt.
We do have a middle of the road general purpose clear LDPE sheet film called GPC http://www.brentwoodplastics.com/data_sheet_gpc.pdf#zoom=100. While it is warranted to be only a simple low cost general purpose plastic film, people continue to try to cut costs by using general purpose clear for applications which require specific properties.
Here are just a few cases of ordering GP clear plastic films to cheap it out and why they ended badly:
Bread bags must have a very low coefficient of friction ( COF ) to load and release without jamming up. General purpose clear is not a high slip / low COF poly film.
Potato bags must be stronger than bread bags for obvious reasons. The bailer bags which hold 10 or so potato bags must be very strong and low slip for stackability.
Ice bags and IQF frozen films must have EVA or metallocene for low temperature stability and strong seals.
Shipping sacks, like bailer bags, must be made from a more durable resin usually having a lower melt index known as a "fractional melt" for durability and must be low slip. GP clear is not strong and the bags slide all over the place.
Lamination sealing layers must have a fast hot tack achieved only with the addition of EVA or metallocene.
Bank deposit bags must have zero slip or the pressure sensitive tape will not adhere to creat a tamper evident seal.
Last week we had two inquiries for "regular poly" to be used in prolonged and direct contact with human skin in medical devices. We had to explain that different rules apply for medical applications.
There is no such thing as regular poly. It is best to tell your PE film supplier what you are doing with the film, then continually test as you scale up to determine suitability for any end use.
Polyethylene sheet film does not have to be inconsistent.
The necessary evil of packaging is usually not percieved to add value so why pay more than you absolutely have to, right ?
To be the lowest price vendor has probably:
1. Used off-grade resins to save money on the major cost: PE resin. The attitude is "the customer won't know the difference." Problem: You do know the difference because the film doesn't seal or shrink like it did 2 hours ago after you readjusted the packaging machine settings for the third time today. You could deal with it if the film was just consistent within the same pallet. A few cents saved on paper quickly adds up to dollars of ruined finished product.
Shrink film is the easiest place to dump reprocessed and off grade resins.
2. Cheated on weights and measures. Funny how film sold by the pound is overgauged and sold by gross weight. Chances film sold by the piece such as bags are a lot thinner than the 10% + - industry tolerances. It gets worse. Bags on a roll are often short counted and nobody seems to notice.
You don't have to live like this
PE Films and Rollstock Configurations
PE film's true price on an area basis is not taken as seriously in shrinkwrap shrink bundling as it is in bagmaking. Users of heat shrink wrap are usually apathetic about what is taken very seriously in the converting arena - yield - or how much a given area of film weighs per 1,000 packages.
Most shrink wrap users do not know that putting both the weight and footage on the roll tickets is standard operating procedure in the converting world. They get a low price per pound for what is known as "heavy" film, or film supplied taking full advantage of the loose + - 10% industry tolerance for PE film. This increases the real price per package by 10% and boosts the extruders' sales by 10%. The thicker film works and everybody's blissfully happy. The apathetic and ignorant end user does not know he is also paying for the gross weight of the cores, pallet, cornerboards and stretch wrap, but no matter. The film is invoiced a low price per pound.
The end user also doesn't know why he can drive a forklift through the specs for transverse direction (TD) shrink. The reason ? The extruder wants to give himself as much leeway possible in scheduling at the blown film extruder. The amount of TD orientation in the blown film will affect how much the film shrinks in the TD, so it makes sense to run the shrink film on the line which needs work right now. Savings achieved by reducing the amount of TD shrink is easy to calculate. A percent saved is a percent saved. Now you know why consistent TD shrink is rarely promoted.
Carving out even one inch from the width can amount to substantial savings over the course of a year.
Here's a short history lesson on how this became commonplace: Armin Kaufman, now president of Hillside Plastics http://hillsideplasticscorp.com/ established the practice during the heyday of his former company, Armin Plastics. On the terms and conditions of sale, it was plainly noted that shrink film and other items were sold by gross weight.
By contrast, bagmakers pay very close attention to yield because it is their major cost. Ordering film 10% "light" is standard operating procedure. Nobody ships film to a bagmaker without the weight and footage clearly marked on each roll.
Want to know how to keep your shrink film supplier honest ?
Find out how at
http://www.brentwoodplastics.com/handy_math_yield_auditor_english.html
EVA and PEVA are both acronyms for Ethylene Vinyl Acetate. Somehow the P for polyethylene was added to create the acronym "PEVA."
To make EVA copolymer, Vinyl Acetate Monomer or "VAM" is copolymerized, or conjoined with Ethylene monomer to make Ethylene Vinyl Acetate.
EVA copolymer is made in varying percentages from 2% EVA, 4% EVA, 6% EVA, 8 % EVA up to about 28 % EVA for blown film. If you order simply "EVA" it is too broad and not specific enough.
The percentage of EVA is critical because the greater the EVA component, the lower the melting point. This affects the EVA film performance properties. If you are RF welding, the more EVA is needed for response to RF frequencies. For low melt / total batch inclusion, the amount of EVA must be known to match with the desired melting point. EVA is popular for solar photovoltaic pv cell encapsulation, yet EVA film suppliers do not specify the percent of EVA in the film for solar panel manufacturers.
When ordering EVA film, be sure to specify the amount of EVA for consistent performance.