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Plastic Bag Industry
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Hope Standard - B.C., Canada, 4.19.06
The Canadian plastics industry is on a campaign to boost the recycling rate of plastic shopping bags.
“These bags are much too valuable a resource to be thrown out after a single use,” said Craig Foster, municipal consultant for the Canadian Plastics Industry Association.
The body has unveiled a new web site – www.myplasticbags.ca.
Foster said Canadians overwhelmingly reuse their plastic bags for various purposes. But many aren’t aware they can be returned for recycling. He pointed to a recent Decima poll of B.C. residents that found only 31 per cent recycle their bags while 91 per cent are in favour of the idea.
“What we’re after are the bags that are not being reused,” Foster said. “If you’re not going to reuse them, recycle them.”
Plastic bags are recycled into a variety of products, including new bags, railway ties, traffic cones, decking and patio furniture. Production of plastic wood is growing at a rate of 14 per cent per year and is expected to hit US $1.4 billion per year by next year.
http://www.hopestandard.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=13&cat=23
Newspapers and Technology - Denver,CO,USA, 4.19.06
The price hikes that vendors are passing through to newspapers aren’t likely to end anytime soon.
The first massive wave has already come from ink, plastics and prepress consumable suppliers. Agfa and Fujifilm unit Enovation Graphics are among the latest to announce price hikes in the United States, while Kodak Graphic Communications Group raised prepress consumables prices in its Europe and Greater Asia regions.
Vendors say they are squeezed by ever-escalating raw materials costs and can no longer hold back passing those increases onto their newspaper customers.
Consider the following:
*2005 aluminum costs neared $2,400 per ton, almost double 2003 prices, fueled in part by spot shortages.
*Silver hit $9.53 a troy ounce in February, doubling 2003 prices.
*Polyester feedstock for film rose 30 percent in the past three years.
*Polyethylene resin, used in plastic bags, rose 15 percent.
*Crude oil prices rose 30 percent in the past year and have tripled since 2001.
http://www.newsandtech.com/issues/2006/04-06/nt/04-06_pricevise.h
BBC News, 3.24.06
Anger over plastic bags is misplaced, says Jane Bickerstaffe in The Green Room this week. Their environmental impact is negligible, she argues, and taxing them can cause more serious damage.
The humble and much maligned thin plastic carrier bag is at least as much a household hero as the pantomime villain it is often (mis)cast to be.
A recent UK government-funded initiative to look at ways to reduce use of thin bags found that people don't want more re-usable "Bags for Life" - they already have plenty in their homes - they just forget to take them to the shops!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4836766.stm
The Edge Daily, 3.9.06
The plastics industry can expect a double-digit growth in sales this year if local plastic bag exporters are cleared of the European Union (EU) dumping charges, said Malaysian Plastics Manufacturers Association (MPMA) vice-president Charles Seow Thong Seng.
http://www.theedgedaily.com/cms/content.jsp?id=com.tms.cms.articl
The Herald, 3.6.06
Shares in British Polythene Industries yesterday surged more than 7% after Europe's largest plastic film and bag maker unveiled a 79% hike in pre-tax profits and raised its dividend for the first time in eight years.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/57478.html
Crains Detroit Business, 2.15.05
San Franciscob's proposed landmark environmental program has the entire nation abuzz, but industry groups want the city to bag it. The city has moved one step closer to implementing a waste-reduction fee on grocery bags.
Sorry! Article no longer available online.
Bloomberg - USA, 1.11.05
A 50 percent increase in polyethylene boosts the retail cost of plastic bags about 6 percent, Nova's Lipton said.
...Detroit-based General Motors, the world's largest carmaker, is trimming costs by using more recycled plastics under the hood, behind the instrument panel and inside the wheel wells of full sized trucks, such as the Silverado.
``We are challenging our suppliers to find good solutions using recycled materials,'' Tom Hill, a spokesman for General Motors, said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aYp5jQApFcxA&
Chicago Sun-Times, 3.17.04
Paper grocery bags are on the comeback trail, thanks to glued-on paper handles that make them easier to carry and able to hold more merchandise.
Six years ago, they seemed headed for extinction, done in by cheaper, less-leaky plastic bags.
(Think paper is the best eco-choice? Think again.) Click here for more
Sorry! Article no longer available online.
Plastic Bag Fight Pits U.S. Makers V. U.S. Importers
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Wall Street Journal, 10.10.03
When fierce overseas competition forced a Sonoco Products Co. plastic bag-making business to close its Santa Maria, Calif., plant last year, ending 100 jobs, the company went on the offensive.
Sonoco and four other U.S. makers of plastic shopping bags, used by grocery and department stories, charged that manufacturers in China, Thailand and Malaysia were violating U.S. antidumping laws by selling the bags in the U.S. below cost.
U.S. manufacturers argue that plastic bags produced in the U.S. and Asia are the same quality, but that Internet bidding has forced the price down, allowing aggressive Asian companies to bid below their real cost. They say the Asian producers want to put the U.S. manufacturers out of business, seizing the U.S. market's 100 billion plastic bags a year.
Most retailers buy bags from Asia through distributors, and have been reluctant to involve themselves in the trade spat. But Target, the nation's second-largest retailer and one of the few companies to purchase the bulk of its 1.8 billion bags a year via the Internet, has come out swinging against the petition.
http://www.global-trade-law.com/Article.WSJ%20Series,Battling%20I
Paper, Film & Foil Converter, 5.13.03
Big business rears it ugly head as The Society of the Plastics Industry creates the formation of a national Plastic Bag Coalition to fight California legislation that would place a tax on all plastic bags used by retailers in the state. The trade association alliance plans to launch a strenuous advocacy and grassroots effort in opposition to the tax.
Californians Against Waste is proposing a two-cent tax on every disposable plastic bag sold. Money generated under the proposed "California Litter and Marine Debris Reduction and Recycling Act" would go toward reducing, cleaning up, and recycling disposable bags and cup litter and marine debris. CAW estimates that the tax could raise $100 million per year.
Our view: Unfortunately this proposed tax would be charged to industry, NOT directly to consumers. These taxes aren't nearly as effective as consumption based taxes such as the PlasTax. Industry has a tendency to merely absorb the cost. In order to reduce consumption and waste it is key that consumer behavior is changed. Click here to learn more about the PlasTax.
http://www.socplas.org/about/news/2003releases/bagtax.htm
Plastic News Opinion, 1.27.03
Around the world, plastic bag makers are fighting for survival. Taiwan is the latest battleground. But even with the strong grass-roots support and political firepower, Taiwan’s plastics industry is losing the war. What will be the result of all this? You can be sure that the bag-ban movement will continue to spread, especially if supporters can point to “positive” results.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/subscriber/opinion2.phtml?id=10434418
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