My family and I just finished decorating the outside of our house for Halloween and we used two rolls of black duct tape to secure a variety of skeletons, bats and  ghoulish creatures – as well as a polystyrene foam ”R.I.P.” gravestone that refused to stand up to the wind.  Not only is it useful in decorating, but duct tape is also a source of inspiration for costumes like this one and especially this one.

Duct tape has assumed a certain comic place in popular culture with frequent mentions in TV sit-coms, comedian stand-up routines and email joke traffic. Most of the humor stems from duct tape’s versatility – it seemingly is the essential failsafe solution to an infinite number of problems.

 Besides devoting an entire web site (and their identity) to duct tape, the Duct Tape Guys promote a fun annual scholarship contest called “Stuck at Prom” that features kids wearing gowns and tuedos made entirely from the sticky strips.

An SPI staffer told me her nephew used to make wallets out of duct tape. Sure enough, here’s a video showing how to do it, as well as some step-by-step instructions.  

Many web-based reports claim that NASA mandates that rolls of duct tape be carried on every space shuttle mission. This Wikipedia entry describes three particular instances where NASA has employed duct tape – including its use in averting disaster on Apollo 13. The  Associated Press reports that NASA  has detailed procedures for dealing with a psychotic astronaut in space that includes crewmates binding their colleague’s wrists and ankles with duct tape.

In 2003, amid growing fears of terrorism, duct tape sales in the Washington D.C. area skyrocketed and stores sold out of the stuff when  U.S. Fire Administrator David Paulison included duct tape in his list of useful items households should have on hand after a biological, chemical or radiological attack.

Johnson & Johnson originated duct tape in 1942 for use in World War II as a way to seal off ammunition cases from moisture. Legend has it these water-resistant properties is the reason many still refer to the tape as “duck tape.” 

Constructed in three layers, duct tapes consist of a polyethylene plastic backing for waterproofing, a cloth middle layer for strength, and a rubber-based sticky adhesive.  Duct tapes differ according to how powerful their adhesive qualities are, the thread count of the cloth layer for strength and the thickness of the polyethylene backing for durability.  High-end tapes also often contain additives that provide resistance to sunlight and severe weather conditions.

Certainly, duct tape remains big business. Just this week, the 3M Co. announced the debut of six varieties of  “Scotch Tough Duct Tapes” that stick to difficult surfaces like brick and stucco and better withstand outdoor weather.  

In September, Berry Plastics Corporation announced in a press release that they were spending $200 million in capital improvements to replace antiquated machinery at its Kentucky plant that manufactures duct tapes.

Finally, in an effort to answer the ultimate question – “Can duct tape fix anything?” – Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters show devoted a whole episode to duct tape. Enjoy the outtakes of video they didn’t use in the episode.

Recently I had a very interesting discussion with a staff member from the American Nursery and Landscaping Association’s Horticultural Research Institute (HRI). He and I talked about developing biodegradable plastics for the nursery and landscape industry from keratin protein. 

If you haven’t heard of keratin before, it persists in hair and feathers (features that protect the animal), hooves (a feature that bears the animal’s load) and horns (a feature that both protects and supports the animal) because it is tough, strong and lightweight. 

HRI is leading efforts on very interesting research to turn chicken feathers to plastics.  Why you ask? Because there is more than 5 billion pounds of feather waste generated by the U.S. poultry industry each year.  The objective of the project is to use the feather keratin fiber and quill in added-value products.

HRI has partnered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) – Agricultural Research Service (ARS) to create a process to convert the feather keratin into tough, lightweight polymers or plastics that can be extruded or molded just like any other plastic product. The focus of this activity is to make commercial products for the nursery, landscape and floriculture industry including biodegradable pots, trays, greenhouse films, turf mesh netting and related products.

So far, through this project HRI and ARS have successfully extruded and pelletized various keratin formulations, have injection molded prototype nursery pots, began composting research trials to meet appropriate ASTM standards and are on their way to turn this project into commercial product that we, as consumers, can buy off the store shelf. 

I think this project is a very cool opportunity for the plastics industry.  Read more about it here. Who knew that feathers could be more than pillow stuffing?

This summer SPI’s Executive Board voted to redesign SPI to better meet the changing needs of a maturing plastics industry in 2010 and beyond.  Specifically, the Board agreed that SPI must focus on four key areas that will enable us to:

• Protect and promote plastics,
• Represent plastics’ business interests at all levels of government,
• Preserve and expand the plastics marketplace, and
• Facilitate business networking and sharing of relevant industry and economic information.

Toward that end, SPI staff and members got together last week at our National Board Meeting to actively participate in putting “meat on the bone” — hashing out the details of the changes that have been made and building out our new structure. In essence, the conversations that took place within the various Council and Committee meetings boiled down to defining “who we are.”

If you are a regular reader of this blog, or have perused our website, you probably have a good idea of what SPI is all about — and, certainly for those outside the ranks of our membership, that is not significantly changing.  This blog fits well under that last bullet above and one of our core activities: communications outreach and marketing.

In a nutshell, SPI is keenly focused on plastics business issues. However, as a staff member, I get dozens of calls each day that are simply outside of our purview.  For example:

• “I’m a plumber working on a job and need to replace metal pipes with a plastic that is just as strong.  Do you make that?”
• “ You may qualify for a free magazine subscription. Please tell me what kind of molding you produce, how many machines you have and  what markets you create products for?”
• “I created a product that will help clear impacted bowels.  Can you manufacture and market it for me if I send you a press release?”
• “My cousin and I just tested a sticky mixture of stuff in my garage and it really holds my shelving in place!  Can you tell please how I can get it approved for mass production and retail sale?”

So, just to be clear, SPI is not a custom plastics processor.  We are not an R&D think-tank creating the next generation of plastics.  We are not a government agency.

We are the national trade association representing the third largest manufacturing industry in the United States.  Our members are the companies that comprise the entire plastics industry supply chain, including processors/convertors, machinery and equipment manufacturers, mold-makers and raw material suppliers. Our organizational structure has been redesigned to make it easier for plastics company representatives to engage in our work to protect and promote plastics, grow the marketplace and maintain an active voice within government.

Yesterday, Representative  Mark Schauer (D-MI) announced $1 million in federal funding for the International Food Protection Training Institute in Battle Creek. According to the Congressman, if President Obama signs the bill into law,  the funding “will help strengthen the important work that is already underway at the Institute to make sure food inspectors have the necessary skills to keep our food supply safe.”

When it comes to food safety, skilled inspectors are important — but so are safeguarding tools such as irradiation and special protective packaging.

In the wake of deadly national outbreaks of salmonella, E. coli and listeria monocytogenes in a variety of foods, safety is high on the priority lists of federal and state legislative and regulatory bodies across the U.S.  There has been a renewed push for irradiation of food to eliminate pathogens and extend shelf life.  Food irradiation involves exposing food to a measured dose of ionizing radiation from gamma rays, electron beams or X-rays to destroy microorganisms and the illnesses they may induce.  FDA first deemed food irradiation safe in 1963, and since then the Agency has approved its use for sterilization of meat, poultry, spices, wheat and wheat powder, and fresh produce.   Irradiated foods can be recognized on grocery store shelves by the presence of the radura symbol.

An interesting challenge arises from the fact that foods are often packaged prior to irradiation to avoid recontamination.  Before a packaging material can be chosen to hold a food during irradiation, the effects of radiation on the stability of the material must be considered carefully.

In the case of plastic food packaging, for example, irradiation may cause either cross-linking (the joining of two polymer chains) or chain scission (the breaking of polymer chains).  If cross-linking occurs during irradiation, the migration of packaging materials into food is not likely to be increased. But if chain scission dominates during the reaction, then lower weight, mobile molecules form that may migrate into food.

Toxicity data is relatively sparse on radiolysis products that may migrate into food from irradiated packaging materials.  There have also been comparatively fewer studies done on the effects of irradiation on plastic  food packaging materials than there have been on irradiation of medical devices and pharmaceutical products.  Migration and toxicity data of this nature are often generated by industry in the process of seeking FDA clearance for new food packaging applications.  To date, however, there has been little economic incentive for companies to spend the $60,000 – $80,000 required for testing to prepare a food additive petition or food contact notification for a material to be cleared for use, often in very small quantities, in a specific application like irradiation with a correspondingly limited market.

Expanding the practice of food irradiation is a means of enhancing food safety. The challenge, however, is that there are relatively few food packaging materials approved by FDA for use in contact with food during the irradiation process.  Companies will likely need market incentives, tax credits or other special funding if they are to finance testing of food packaging materials for irradiation.

We looked at our old carpet and padding – rolled and bound in piles in the garage. It was worn out, but I couldn’t stand to just let it go – to a landfill, that is.

I looked up reclamation centers through the Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE), an organization that works to reduce landfill disposal of carpet and increase the recycling and reuse of post-consumer carpet. A nearby center accepted carpet padding, but not the carpet part.  Carpet is recyclable, but we learned, among other things, that there is no real infrastructure in place. We couldn’t find an option for the carpet near us so we put it curbside and off my husband went with a carload of padding.

At the center, the padding was loaded into a forklift basket, driven to a scale and weighed. After one weight ticket, presenting his driver’s license, signing and dating one receipt, two offices and one thumb print later (“State law,” it was explained, as he was given a moist towelette to clear the ink from his thumb) — he finally got his receipt. Scanning its bar code at their ATM, he received: $3.60. It seems recyclers charge to accept carpet but pay for padding.

Most carpet is either nylon 6,6 or nylon 6, but it may be polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polypropylene, wool or a blend. Padding can be foam (such as flexible polyurethane foam or FPF), rubber, fiber or other materials.”

We took some comfort in doing what we could, as well as in what has been done collectively in recent years. Since 2002, more than 1.3 billion pounds of post-consumer carpet has been diverted from landfills; 1.2 billion pounds of this was recycled into composite lumber, roofing, new carpet, automotive parts and other products. While that’s less than five percent of carpet discards per year, industry is working on improvements. Carpet recycling can also contribute to LEEDcertification. I also found some interesting news in CARE’s last Annual Report, including:

• For every pound of waste Beaulieu Group generates in manufacturing, they consume two pounds of post-consumer waste.
• Interface won an award for a program allowing reclamation of all residential and commercial carpet types.
• Mannington Mills has tiles with 100% post-production yarn.
• Landfills haven’t seen any waste from carpet manufacturing at Milliken since 1999.
• Mohawk has a facility that even recycles the calcium carbonate used in the backings.

By the time we need these services again, more may be available. But we both agreed the process was well worth keeping the padding out of a landfill.