Plastic Cups, Straws and Tape: Materials of Artistic Genius

Tara Donovan has to be the most creative customer in the plastics packaging supply chain. Donovan is an artist from Brooklyn, NY who won a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation "genius" award last week. Recipients of the annual MacArthur program receive a single phone call from the Foundation with news that they will receive $500,000 in no-strings-attached support over the next five years. According to the Foundation’s web site, Donovan uses plastic cups, drinking straws and Scotch tape to “transform ordinary accumulated materials into intriguing visual and physical installations.” Donovan, 38, will enjoy the opening of her first major museum show, a traveling retrospective, on October 10 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston

Donovan’s work is cool, eerie and quite unique in that it uses manufactured items to suggest natural landscapes and terrains. Check out these photos of her work and note the description of the materials used.

Here’s how the folks at ARTINFO described two of her installations: One “rises from the floor like a fog conjured improbably by Scotch tape looped in seemingly endless spiral formations and graded hills” and another is a “mountain of stacked straws creeping up the wall in an ethereal haze.” Many of her works must be freshly built each time they are displayed at a gallery or exhibition space. That’s no easy chore. For example, her "Untitled (Plastic Cups)" (2006), involves stacking millions of transparent plastic cups and can be expanded or contracted to fit a particular size area.

Perhaps manufacturers of plastics cups and straws should consider being a corporate sponsor of Tara Donovan’s next show! Maybe she would be willing to display her art for us at NPE2009.

In Praise of “In Praise of Plastic”

As SPI gears up for both Sustain ’08 (the landmark plastics sustainability conference set for November 5-7 in Chicago) and its internet based Industry Promotion Campaign, we were gratified to see “In Praise of Plastic,” a mostly positive story in the Boston Globe's Sunday magazine on September 28th.

SPI staff responded to reporter Keith O’Brien’s request for help with the story several weeks ago, and we are pleased that he wrote a fairly comprehensive and engaging article on the benefits of plastics – particularly how our favorite material benefits the environment. In fact, the article’s sub-head reads: “Why an oil-sucking, landfill-clogging, non-biodegradable, it's-everywhere material is so good for the environment. Really."

Here’s an excerpt from the article that lays out some of the ways plastics contribute to a more sustainable world:

“…innovative new plastic packaging is actually more energy-efficient than other alternatives and helps users reduce, not increase, their carbon footprints. Replacing the plastic packaging that is in use today, according to one European study, would use four times as much material from other sources, like paper or aluminum. The key reason why: Plastic is lightweight. Your typical plastic quart milk jug, according to studies, is about 90 percent lighter than its equivalent glass container and about 30 percent lighter than a paper carton. Less packaging means less waste and less energy spent on transport - and packaging is hardly the only application for plastic.

Builders use plastic to wrap new homes, cutting down on heat loss and increasing energy efficiency. Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner, which relies so heavily on carbon fiber reinforced plastic (a type of acrylic) construction that some have dubbed it the "plastic plane," uses 20 percent less fuel than any other airplane of its size. And Detroit automakers, companies that have been using plastic to make dashboards and bumpers for decades, are looking to follow Boeing's lead. In tight times, they want to reduce weight and increase fuel efficiency. The answer: plastics.”

The article points out that recycling plastics is still a problem, but makes clear that, generally, the issue is not due to the material itself. In fact, the piece concludes with this quote from Bob Malloy, a professor and the chairman of the plastics engineering department at UMass-Lowell:

"Plastics generally improve the quality of life. I don't want to see plastic bags and bottles at the beach, either. But to me, that's not a plastics problem. Those plastic bottles and bags are completely recyclable. Its people.”

We hope “In Praise of Plastic” generates discussion and that you pass the article on to your colleagues.

Short Shelf Life?

As you may have heard, Congress allowed the Outer Continental Shelf Moratorium, first enacted in 1982 and extended annually ever since, to expire yesterday. The removal of the ban will allow the Mineral Management Service to conduct oil and natural gas exploration up to three miles off of the coast of the United States. In July President Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling,

High natural gas prices are stifling the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers, including the plastics industry, which depends on natural gas as both an energy source and a feedstock in order to make thousands of products that America depends on -- from the parts that make cars and planes more energy efficient to the medical devices that save lives every day, So, certainly, this is a victory for manufacturers and consumers as it may increase access to domestic natural gas supplies, thus lowering the cost of doing business and moving our nation a step closer toward independence from foreign energy sources. Indeed, the end of the ban is a major change in Congressional opinion given that only two years ago lawmakers were only willing to grant access to a small piece of the Gulf of Mexico for oil and natural gas leasing.

On the other hand, it is still very possible that after November’s elections the new Administration that will take office January 20, 2009 will renew the Executive Order prohibiting exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf. A short “Shelf” life for the moratorium, indeed.

Will offshore drilling, by itself, bring a solution to our energy dilemma? No, but it should be part of the mix in the development of a well-rounded and sustainable national energy strategy that includes conservation, waste to energy, wind, solar, nuclear, coal and other innovations. That’s why despite the ban’s expiration, SPI and its members will continue to press the offshore energy issue with lawmakers.

For more information, read the statement released by SPI President and CEO Bill Carteaux.

SPI Call to Action

Congress will return to Washington, DC this week from their August recess. One of the major issues Congress is expected to address is energy and particularly high oil and natural gas prices.

SPI is asking you to contact your lawmaker and ask them to pass pro-drilling, pro-supply legislation. If you have already done this, thank you very much for taking the time to support the industry on this matter. If you haven't had a chance yet to contact your lawmaker, SPI urges you to do it today so that Congress knows that high natural gas prices are hurting the plastics industry! Lawmakers are more likely to take positive action on this issue if they hear from YOU, a constituent in their state.

Action Requested
Please e-mail your lawmaker asking him/her to support pro-drilling, pro-supply legislation. You may choose to modify the form letter found in SPI's Political Action Center or simply send it without making any changes. The most important part is that you communicate with your elected official.

After taking action on this bill, we also ask that you forward this alert on to your colleagues, customers, suppliers and neighbors and ask them to do the same.

Green Business Expert Andrew Winston, Co-Author of Bestselling Green to Gold, To Keynote Plastics Industry Sustainability Summit

Plastics Industry Executives to Convene November 5-7, 2008 in Chicago for
“Sustain’08: Plastics Industry Summit”

Andrew Winston, a globally recognized expert on green business and co-author of the bestselling book "Green to Gold", will be the featured keynote speaker at Sustain ’08: Plastics Business Summit, a landmark sustainability conference that will feature two dozen presenters ranging from brand owners and designers to plastics executives and leading environmental consultants. The Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. (SPI) and the Plastics News Global Group are co-organizing the event, to be held November 5-7, 2008 in Chicago.

“Andrew Winston is the perfect speaker to set the stage for what plastics industry executives want to accomplish over the course of the Sustain ’08 conference,” said SPI President and CEO William Carteaux. “The leaders of our industry want to explore how to incorporate sustainability into their business plans and meet the environmental demands of customers. Winston’s keynote will lay the foundation for attendees to tackle specific issues in the panels and presentations that follow.”

“Many in the plastics industry want to do the right thing, while keeping a close eye on their bottom line during these challenging economic times — and Winston has documented how green business means good business,” added Tony Eagan, publisher and vice president of the Plastics News Global Group. “Sustainability is a broad topic affecting everyone and every link in the supply chain. At Sustain ’08 we will address the impact on various end markets, from automotive and electronics to packaging, construction and medical equipment.”

With clients that have included Coca-Cola, Hewlett-Packard and IKEA, Andrew Winston assists companies in using environmental strategy to grow, create enduring value and build stronger relationships with employees, customers and other stakeholders. His book, Green to Gold, is a guide to what works — and what doesn't — when companies “go green,” and is based on four years of research with hundreds of executives at dozens of companies. Winston’s career has included management positions in strategy and marketing at Boston Consulting Group, Time-Warner and MTV and he now heads his own firm, Winston Eco-Strategies. He also served as the director of the Corporate Environmental Strategy Project at Yale University's renowned School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Winston has a B.A. in economics from Princeton, an MBA from Columbia and a Masters of Environmental Management from Yale.

The Sustain ’08 conference will provide plastics company CEOs, sustainability officers, marketing executives and others with the knowledge and tools they need to view sustainability as a strategy toward reducing costs, eliminating waste and marketing responsibly — all while maximizing profitability. Kicking off with an afternoon energy-management workshop and evening welcome reception on November 5, Sustain’08 will include panel discussions and presentations geared to the plastics industry on a variety of vital topics, including: how to define your carbon footprint, environmentally responsible product design, key end-market impacts, “greenwashing” and environmental marketing, supply-chain solutions and much more.

To register online, make a hotel reservation or obtain full program details on Sustain ’08: Plastics Business Summit, visit www.sustain08.com. SPI members save $200 on the regular registration fee.