The happy little guy above is Kaiba Gionfriddo, 19 months old, having fun with every breath he takes, but if a brilliant medical team had not placed a 3D-printed plastic splint onto his bronchial airway to hold it open, it’s unlikely he would be alive today.

Kaiba was born with a rare condition called tracheobronchomalacia, which causes the airways to be weak and prone to collapse. Additionally, some of the arteries around his heart were malformed; encircling the trachea tightly enough to compress the airway.

Sadly, most parents only become aware of this when their child suddenly stops breathing and dies. Baby Kaiba stopped breathing and turned blue in a restaurant when he was six weeks old. His father, Bryan Gionfriddo, used CPR to revive him, but the episodes continued and Kaiba was put on a breathing machine when he was two months old. Despite the best treatments available, it was virtually certain that he would die soon.

Kaiba’s doctor in Youngstown, Ohio had learned that doctors at the University of Michigan were developing a solution for this problem and contacted them. The UM doctors’ solution was to put a tubular device around the trachea that would hold it open. The tube/scaffold/splint has small holes the surgeon can use to suture it in place.

Since this would be the first time the device was used on a human, the doctors requested and received special permission to proceed from their school’s advisory board and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA).

University of Michigan doctors made a model of the trachea and then built the plastic splint using a 3D bioprinter.

The medical team made a model of Kaiba’s trachea and, using a program they developed, designed the tubular scaffold. The bioplastic material they used to build the scaffold on their 3D bioprinter is called polycaprolactone (PCL), a polymer approved by the FDA to fill small holes in the skull. The bioprinter melts the powder material and then builds the designed shape layer by micro-thin layer. The doctors made many of them in different sizes.

In February of 2012 the U. of Michigan surgical team carefully rearranged Kaiba’s twisted heart arteries and trachea, and then carefully placed the splint. And as soon as the splint was put in, the little lungs began moving up and down for the first time. The doctors say that in three years the material will be completely reabsorbed and excreted by the body, and the airways will be able to function on their own.

Kaiba went home three weeks after the surgery and has not had a breathing crisis since. His parents say he is learning how to get around and is being spoiled by his 6-year-old brother and 11-year-old sister.

The new procedure using the splint made by 3D printing  plastic material was made public this week by the medical team at the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI via an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. There is now hope for children born with this rare condition, where previously there was virtually none.

Polycaprolactone is a biodegradable polyester material, and the PCL used in 3D printing — also known as additive manufacturing (AM) — is a special grade of the material. Probably the most common use of PCL is in the manufacturing of polyurethane materials, where it helps achieve good water, oil, solvent, and chlorine resistance. It is also added to other resins to improve their processing and certain end-product properties, for example impact resistance.

Yesterday in Washington, D.C., Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) announced they had reached what is being termed a groundbreaking agreement to revamp the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Indeed, the Chemical Safety Improvement Act of 2013 (CSIA) that they have introduced in the Senate is groundbreaking in several ways.

Despite widespread agreement that TSCA was not an effective solution to the testing of tens of thousands of chemicals found in consumer and industrial products, the Senate had been deadlocked for roughly the last two decades on how to test and regulate them.

Not only does the CSIA look ready to break that gridlock, it comes with significant bipartisan support, which everyone knows is very difficult to obtain for anything in today’s political climate. Besides Senators Lautenberg and Vitter, there are 14 other Senators co-sponsoring the Act, seven Republicans and seven Democrats. All told there are eight Senators from each side of the aisle sponsoring this long-needed reform.

Add to that the reaction from the business sectors that stand to be most impacted by the proposed Act, which has been broadly and strongly positive. William R. Carteaux, President and CEO of SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association issued the following statement regarding the introduction of this legislation:

U.S. Senator David Vitter (R-LA; center), is shown with Jon Kurrle (left), SPI Senior VP, Government & Industry Affairs, and Bill Carteaux, SPI President & CEO during the Plastics Hall of Fame event at NPE2012, SPI’s triennial trade show and conference held in Orlando, FL.

“On behalf of SPI members and the entire U.S. plastics industry, I want to thank Senators Lautenberg and Vitter, as well as the other cosponsors, for the leadership and determination they have displayed in crafting a groundbreaking, bipartisan bill.  The legislation is a true milestone, and shows that the charged political environment inside the beltway need not take a back seat to consensus building.

“SPI has long advocated TSCA updates that embrace 21st century scientific and technological advances, while enhancing the ability of the U.S. plastics industry to develop and utilize essential materials.  The Chemical Safety Improvement Act of 2013 encompasses a broad spectrum of stakeholder viewpoints, and I am hopeful that its introduction will usher in a new era of cooperation in the collective pursuit of TSCA modernization.”

Cal Dooley, President and CEO of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) was equally positive in his statement: “The business of chemistry creates the building blocks for 96 percent of all manufactured goods and is a key driver of the U.S. economy. Reforming TSCA in a way that supports safety, jobs and innovation is important for American consumers, U.S. chemical producers and American businesses of all kinds, as well as their workers. These principles are at the foundation of the CSIA.”

The co-sponsors of Lautenberg-Vitter “Chemical Safety Improvement Act of 2013″ include U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Charles Schumer (D-NY), James Inhofe (R-OK), Tom Udall (D-NM), Susan Collins (R-ME), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Joe Manchin (D-WV), John Boozman (R-AR), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and John Hoeven (R-ND).

Earlier today, May 17, 2013, Pennsylvania State Representative Frank Dermody (D-33), the Democratic Leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, met with the management and employees at the Harwick, PA facility of Watson Standard, a leading supplier of coatings and adhesives and member of SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association.

Pennsylvania State Rep Frank Dermody (left) today toured the Harwick, PA manufacturing facility of Watson Standard with the company’s Wes Horton (center) and Jeff Matty.

Top managers gave Rep. Dermody an organized tour of the plant’s manufacturing area, helping him learn about the physical production processes, as well as the overall business of the company. Plant visits such as this are organized regularly with the support of the Government and Industry Affairs specialists at SPI in order to familiarize legislators with actual operations of companies in America’s diverse plastics business, the third largest sector of American manufacturing.

Among those meeting with Rep. Dermody were Jim Lore, President of Watson Standard, Jeff Matty, VP of regulatory affairs, and Wes Horton,  director of manufacturing. Watson Standard, which was founded in 1902 is a privately held specialty chemical coating and adhesives supplier with its headquarters in Pittsburgh, about 10 miles southwest of the Harwick manufacturing facility.

Certified to the ISO 9001:2008 quality standard, WS focuses on application-based, customer-specific conventional and energy-curable coatings and adhesives for a broad range of applications encompassing rigid, flexible, food, beverage, pharmaceutical, confectionery, and general industrial packaging. Besides its American home market, the company has a global sales and distribution that includes Central and South America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region.

The communication that takes place both during and after plant visits such as Rep. Dermody’s today is invaluable to both sides. Legislators are tasked with creating laws and regulations that directly impact all the manufacturing sectors. It therefore is important that they know as much as possible about actual manufacturing operations, and equally important that manufacturers are able to have input into the government actions that will affect their businesses going forward.

Recognizing this, SPI facilitates plant visits for its member companies, many of which have taken advantage of the opportunity. Further, SPI for some time sponsored “fly-ins” that bring leaders of plastics sector businesses to Washington, D.C. for meetings directly with their legislators and staffers.

The next SPI Fly-In is set for July 24, 2013, but this time it’s not just SPI members coming in. Seven other plastics-related associations are joining in, including: American Chemistry Council, American Composites Manufacturers Association, International Association of Plastics Distribution, Plastic Pipe and Fittings Association, Plastic Pipe Institute, Vinyl Institute, and Western Plastics Association. More Fly-In information here.

A sincere thank-you goes to the folks at BagTheBan.com for producing a brief, easy to read infographic that clearly shows how and why plastic bags are a better choice than paper or reusable shopping bags—for the environment, the economy, and the place where you live.

It’s called The Truth About Plastic Bags, and it lives up to its name with factual, quantitative information on plastic bags relative to litter, source material, recyclability (spoiler alert: 100% recyclable), access to bag recycling, environmental impact (see below), negative impacts of bag bans on retail businesses, and more.

The colorful, multipage infographic is available as a free PDF download that can be easily reprinted and handed to those who mistakenly believe plastic bags make the worst choice when the truth is the exact opposite. Facts are facts.

You can see a sample from The Truth About Plastic Bags below, and you can see it in full and download it here. For more information on plastic bags, visit BagTheBan.com, which is presented by Hilex Poly, a leader in plastic bag recycling and manufacturing.

Much is being written lately about American manufacturing, which of course includes plastics, America’s third largest manufacturing sector. However, the analysis, opinions, and forecasts are far from unanimous. Many analysts say U.S. manufacturing is making a comeback, or is on the verge of a comeback, with reshoring of previously offshored work helping the efforts.

But you are just as likely to see or hear that the uptick in American manufacturing is a glitch, just part of a reflex-like rebound from the recession of 2008-2009, that there are serious obstacles to a major recovery, and that the U.S. is unlikely to ever recover its prominence as a maker of things.

One of the most frequently mentioned obstacles is a lack of skilled workers in the USA. Several recent studies put the number of jobs going unfilled due to employers not being able to find people with the needed skills at about half a million, and probably more. They are not talking about graduate engineers, though they too are scarce, but shop floor, hands-on machine operators, maintenance specialists, and machinists.

The ManpowerGroup’s 2012 Annual Talent Shortage Survey found 33 percent of U.S. employers have difficulty finding skilled workers, an increase from 24 percent in the 2011 survey. The Survey revealed that the 10 hardest jobs to fill are, in order of difficulty: skilled trades, engineers, IT staff, sales reps, accounting/finance staff, drivers, mechanics, nurses, machinists/machine operators, and teachers.

The so-called skills gap could either stop a manufacturing renaissance or slow it down significantly. The good news is that solutions are developing. For example, the federal government is supporting creation of centers for manufacturing excellence around the country, and plastics manufacturers and others are working with educational institutions such as community colleges to give workers the skills they need.

One solution, however, deserves more attention. “The central answer to the mismatch between jobs and employment is a 21^st-century apprenticeship program,” according to a recent article in the Washington Post. The authors, Stuart E. Eizenstat, chief domestic policy adviser to President Jimmy Carter and undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration, and Robert I. Lerman, an economics professor at American University and a fellow at the Urban Institute, make a strong case for apprenticeships.

There are a number of existing manufacturing apprenticeship programs in operation, but with about half a million jobs open that can’t be filled, more are needed. The article points out that 55 to 70 percent of all young people in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland enter apprenticeships. To be sure, those countries have long traditions of guilds and craftwork and you could say apprenticeships are in their culture. But in Australia apprenticeships have tripled since 1996, and in England they have increased by a factor of 10 since 1990 to more than 500,000 participants last year.

As a plastics industry journalist in Europe, I visited numerous plastics processing facilities, and I saw apprentices at work in many of them, particularly in Germany. Those training programs are as normal and common there as they are rare and unusual in the USA. Top managers of the processing companies told me the apprentice programs are virtually always three-way partnerships among government, education, and the manufacturer — and they always spoke of the program and its results positively. I recall one manager, puzzled by my questions about the apprentice system, stopped for a moment and then told me, in a serious tone, that those youngsters were the future of his company.

My interviews were almost always at small to medium plastics processing companies, almost all plastics molders and moldmakers. The larger companies also have apprentice programs. In every case, the managers emphasized that the learning was absolutely practical, based on the specifics of processing plastics and toolmaking. They stressed how, following a brief startup period, the apprentices did real work that the company needed, not made-up training exercises. The learning provided by the educational institution likewise was driven by what the apprentices would be doing following their training. The keyword for the apprentice training is practical.

Manufacturing accounts for 20 percent of all German jobs, despite a high level of automation. Manufacturing is about 10 percent of the U.S. workforce. Germany as a country is strongly focused on exports and regularly enjoys a trade surplus. By contrast, America’s large trade deficit seems to have become a permanent part of economic reports.

Making apprenticeships an effective component of U.S. manufacturing will require a cultural shift. Eizenstat and Lerman note that government in America spends more than $300 billion on colleges and universities, while its outlays for apprenticeship programs are less than $40 million. Many Americans believe that a college diploma is essential to success, that production facilities are terrible workplaces, and that a career in manufacturing lacks prestige and is not financially rewarding.

As everyone in manufacturing knows, the truth is quite the opposite. The apprentice graduates with a sense of pride and the identity that comes with joining an occupational group. And the financial considerations are very different. Unlike a full-time student, the apprentice earns money while learning and training, does not accumulate what increasingly is a heavy burden of student loan debt, has not been unemployed, and most likely will not be.