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contents JUNE 2023 VOLUME 82 • NUMBER 3

FROM THE ARCHIVES

The inaugural issue of Canadian Plastics in August 1943 reported on numerous World War II-related products made by Canadian molders, including Duplate Canada doing transfer molding to make plastic fuses for the Department of Munitions and Supply; Stanley Manufacturing making parts for mechanical computers for use in aerial warfare calculations; Dulev Plastics molding terminal blocks made from butyrate for tank assemblies, and coil forms of polystyrene for the Signal Corps; and Joseph Stokes Rubber Co. molding all-plastic hand grenades, and also using the “Shaw” transfer molding process to make warning lamps from phenolic compounds.

12

5

Number of the month:

110,000*

*Square footage of Antek Madison Plastics Corp.’s new plant in Stryker, Ohio.

(See pg. 7)

30 cover story

4

Editor’s View: Taking stock after 80 years

5

Ideas & Innovations: Lightweight AR glasses transcribe and display spoken language

7

News: • Canadian resin distributor Antek Madison buys Ohio materials plant • Heartland Polymers begins integrated commercial PP production in Alberta • Kearns to lead Nova Chemicals as new CEO • Supplier News and People

40 Technology Showcase: Focus on dryers 41 Advertising Index

12 80th ANNIVERSARY: How we got here

Canadian Plastics turns 80 this summer, and from World War II to COVID-19, what a long, strange trip it’s been. From the industry’s earliest days and our first issue to the present, here’s a look at some memorable developments as we covered them.

features

22 ROBOTS & AUTOMATION: Thermoforming automation reaches for more

As thermoformers look for faster production rates with higher capacities while also grappling with labour shortages, automation has become a necessity. And virtually all automation suppliers now have enhanced equipment offerings.

28 SIZE REDUCTION: Sizeable question

Whether to use a granulator or a shredder is a size reduction question that’s been confronting (and sometimes confounding) plastics processors for decades. Here’s guidance from some experts.

36 RECYCLING: Soil strategy

Not-for-profit industry stewardship organization Cleanfarms is working to help Canadian farmers recycle their agricultural plastic waste.

42 Technical Tips: Dealing with off-centre gates in stretch blow molding

Visit us at www.canplastics.com June 2023 Canadian Plastics

3

Canadian Plastics magazine reports on and interprets developments in plastics markets and technologies worldwide for plastics processors, moldmakers and end-users based in Canada.

editor’s view

www.canplastics.com

Taking stock after 80 years

N

ostalgia, someone once said, ain’t what it used to be.

So, rather than getting nostalgic over Canadian Plastics turning 80, I’ll take a look at how our very first editorial in our very first issue in August 1943 – called “Editorial Comment,” not “Editor’s View” – assessed the role of plastics; what we got right, and where we went a bit astray.

The year 1943 was just past the halfway point of World War II, although nobody knew that at the time.

And plastics, as our editorial noted, had been enlisted for the cause from the very beginning. “Our industry has rendered meritorious service in a period of extreme urgency,” we wrote. “When the pressure was on, this youthful industry stepped in to fill a breach created by the requirements of modern mechanized warfare. From the role of a substitute, this material of many properties has come forward to stand, very ably, on its own feet. It is now a matter of record that plastics, in wartime application, has in many cases, and because of its peculiar properties, earned a permanent and enduring engineering role.”

If some of the words sound a bit lofty to our ears – most of us having been raised in a postmodern culture that’s saturated with sarcasm and irony – bear in mind that the stakes were extremely high: the fate of the free world actually was at stake. And the points made were all true.

Plastics really did step up as both a replacement material for steel, and also as a wartime material in its own right, used in ropes, parachutes, helmet liners, body armour, and much more.

Predictions, someone else once said, are hard, especially when they’re about the future. Nevertheless, our first editorial offered this prediction: “Today, the designer and engineer are utilizing plastics as a structural complement to con-

4 Canadian Plastics June 2023

ventional materials. Tomorrow, when the ‘green light’ goes on, the utility and functional advantages of plastics will be embraced on a sound, enduring, and increasingly economic basis.” Who could deny that this came true?

Where we possibly got out over our skis was in our concluding declaration that “the plastics industry has certified and guaranteed its own future.” This was true enough for a long time, but that guarantee has faltered a bit over the past few years, in Canada and elsewhere. I won’t bore you with yet another recitation of how and why – if you’re reading this magazine, you already know the details; and you know that the designation of plastic manufactured items as “toxic” is Canada’s own toxic gift to the world. Suffice it to say that the plastics sector is once again caught up in a global conflict, only this time we’re in the crosshairs.

What our first editorial couldn’t have foreseen is the irrational, counterproductive pushback against plastic from, broadly speaking, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the generation that embraced it so eagerly and wholeheartedly in the 1940s.

The last paragraph of our first editorial ended with the pledge that Canadian Plastics will provide Canadian processors with “specific information dictated by the requirements peculiar to the country…independent of false optimism.” That’s still the goal, and now is definitely not the time for false optimism. (But not for pessimism or the hemlock approach, either; more like realism about the challenges and how to overcome them.)

And for those of you who do appreciate nostalgia, by the way, our anniversary retrospective section begins on pg. 12.

Reader Service Print and digital subscription inquiries or changes, please contact Angelita Potal Tel: 416-510-5113 Fax: 416-510-6875 email: apotal@annexbusinessmedia.com Mail: 111 Gordon Baker Rd., Suite 400 Toronto, ON M2H 3R1 EDITOR Mark Stephen 416-510-5110 Fax: 416-442-2230 mstephen@canplastics.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Stephen Kranabetter C: 416-561-5362 W: 416-510-6791 skranabetter@annexbusinessmedia.com MEDIA DESIGNER Lisa Zambri lzambri@annexbusinessmedia.com ACCOUNT COORDINATOR Cheryl Fisher 416-510-5194 cfisher@annexbusinessmedia.com AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Serina Dingeldein 416-510-5124 sdingeldein@annexbusinessmedia.com GROUP PUBLISHER/VP SALES Martin McAnulty mmcanulty@annexbusinessmedia.com PRESIDENT/COO Scott Jamieson sjamieson@annexbusinessmedia.com PRINTED IN CANADA ISSN 008-4778 (Print) ISSN 1923-3671 (Online) Publication Mail Agreement #40065710 2023 SUBSCRIPTION RATES

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ideas & innovations

Lightweight AR glasses transcribe and display spoken language

Photo Credit: Sabic

T

he intersection of two global trends is making a new pair of augmented reality (AR) eyeglasses from Beijing LLVision Technology Co. Ltd. a very timely development.

First, according to the World Health Organization, about 1.5 billion people (nearly 20 per cent of the global population) live with hearing loss – a number that could rise to 2.5 billion by 2050 as the population ages. And second, there’s a growing need for international communications that has arisen with the loosening of COVID-19 restrictions. A remedy for both is to “listen” with your eyes, which is where the new Leion Hey glasses come in.

Featuring stems molded from Sabic’s Ultem 1000 polyetherimide (PEI) – material supplied in a custom grey colour – the glasses use automatic speech recognition technology and artificial intelligence to create, stream, and display translations of voice input data in milliseconds, printing the spoken words across the lens. The glasses connect wirelessly to a smartphone app that handles user authentication.

The result is a product that can help avoid the challenges of hearing in noisy environments or lip-reading when people are wearing masks, and can facilitate communication in multilingual work

environments and enable more-active business and social interactions.

At the outset, said CEO Wu Wei, Beijing LLVision’s goal was to make the lightest AR glasses on the market, since – like most corrective eyewear – they have to be worn for lengthy periods of time. But the number of components that needed to be integrated – including an optical module, microphone, and computer chip – was a complicating factor, since these add to the weight. Ultem 1000 allowed up to a 30 per cent weight reduction compared to competing materials like amorphous polyamide, Wei said. “With the help of Ultem resin, we lowered the overall weight of our Leion Hey glasses to just 79 grams, or 2.8 ounces,” he explained.

The Sabic material also provided a host of other benefits, Wei said: more

space for the embedded components by enabling thin-wall molding of the hollow stems, which contain both a lithium-ion battery and computer chip to enable the rapid, multilanguage translations; combined stiffness and strength that allow the stems to clamp securely to the wearer’s head; flame retardance – rated for fire safety under the UL 94 V0, V2, and 5VA standards – that enhances the safety of devices that incorporate electronic components; and a non-halogenated formulation that doesn’t use either chlorine or bromine, both of which are associated with adverse health and environmental effects.

Sabic and Beijing LLVision are now partnering on a next-generation version of the Leion Hey glasses that will use a certified renewable, bio-based grade of Ultem resin.

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news

Canadian resin distributor Antek Madison buys Ohio materials plant

Photo Credit: Antek Madison Plastics Corp.

I

nternational resin distributor and compounder Antek Madison Plastics Corp., headquartered in Toronto, has acquired a materials plant in Stryker, Ohio, from LyondellBasell Industries for an undisclosed price.

Antek Madison CEO Jim Angelopoulos told Canadian Plastics that the firm is using the Stryker site for railcar unloading, warehousing, blending, and lab testing, along with pulverizing and distributing rotational molding (rotomolding)-grade resin – which is a new business area for the company. “The new plant allows us to expand and diversify our product offerings and better supply new and existing customers in the U.S. Midwest, alongside Ontario and Quebec, with very little lead time,” he said. “The Stryker site covers 110,000 square feet and has 15 resin silos that hold 200,000 pounds each, as well as its own rail spur. It was designed for easy delivery, unloading, and storage of materials, so it suited our needs perfectly.”

Antek Madison has added two new pulverizers to the Stryker site that can service the region’s numerous rotomolders, Angelopoulos said, and the company also plans to install more blending and pulverizing capacity for a growing customer base. “We’re growing our Canadian and U.S. Midwest customer base rapidly, because our locations allow us to service them in good time,” Angelopoulos said. “We’re a stocking distributor, so having supply readily available is crucial for us. As we see it, there’s going to be an abundance of reasonably priced material in the future – the only question will be, how fast can it be delivered to the

customer? So, logistics will be critical going forward, and the Stryker site gives us that. Having our own fleet of 53-foot dry vans along with natural and black resin tankers has also helped position us.”

The plant – which LyondellBasell bought from A. Schulman Inc. in 2018, and which had been vacant for a year prior to the Antek Madison purchase – currently has eight Antek Madison employees, and Angelopoulos says the company is looking to add more. “Ohio is a business-friendly state with great people, so we’re looking forward to staffing up,” he said.

Antek Madison was founded in 1994 in Toronto as a recycler, and then evolved its business into compounding and distribution, and currently operates an 80,000-square-foot Toronto facility. In 2004, the company added a 170,000-square-foot compounding plant in Chicago. The Stryker plant is its third location.

The company’s product mix includes prime grades of polyethylene (PE), HDPE, polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), ABS, PET, and acetal; and regrind polycarbonate, PE, PP, PS, ABS, and nylon.

CPL

Heartland Polymers begins integrated commercial PP production in Alberta

Photo Credit: Heartland Polymers

H

eartland Polymers announced on March 16 the successful startup of its propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant, which is now providing onsite feedstock for commercial polypropylene (PP) production.

“Thanks to the dedication and hard work of our operations team, I’m proud to report that our propane dehydrogenation plant has been providing a reliable onsite source of feedstock to our [PP] production since the end of 2022,” said Heartland CEO Todd Karran.

Heartland said it produced approximately 200 million pounds of PP in 2022 after initial PP production began in July, followed by the PDH plant’s startup in October 2022. Located in Strathcona County, northeast of Edmonton, Heartland officials said the plant is unique to the industry, producing both polymer-grade propylene (PGP) feedstock and PP product at a single site.

Heartland’s PP plant and its co-generation central utilities block (CUB) were commissioned in 2022. Before the PDH plant entered into service, Heartland was producing PP with PGP feedstock from parent company Inter Pipeline’s NGL business, said to be Canada’s only PGP producer prior to PDH entering into service. This alternate feed source enabled Heartland to

begin PP production in late fall 2022 and remains a key aspect of Heartland’s reliability in addition to its geographic location, company officials said.

Heartland is currently producing a range of homo-polymers, and plans to add random co-polymers to its production schedule this year. Production currently focuses on serving demand for film, sheet extrusion, fibres, and injection molding, Heartland officials said.

CPL

June 2023 Canadian Plastics

7

news

R

oger Kearns has joined Nova Chemicals Corp. as the Calgary-based polyethylene supplier’s new president and CEO. Kearns replaces Danny Dweik, who had served as interim president and CEO of Nova since October. Dweik replaced Luis Sierra, who had held those roles since mid-2020.

Kearns most recently served as chief operating officer of Westlake Corp., a major plastics and chemicals maker based in Houston. In an April 6 news release, Nova officials said that while at Westlake, Kearns drove large-scale sales growth and led the acquisition of Hexion’s global epoxy business.

Overall, Kearns has more than 30 years of chemicals and plastics experience. Earlier in his career, he held executive roles at Solvay.

Dweik will remain a member of Nova’s board of directors and will return to his role as head of industrials and business services at Nova owner Mubadala Investment Co. of Abu Dhabi.

CPL

Quebec’s Plastifab diversifies molding with Marchel acquisition

E

xtrusion firm Plastifab Industries Inc. is buying South Carolina injection molder Marchel Industries Inc. to broaden its geographic reach and manufacturing portfolio.

Plastifab, based in Saint-Laurent, Que., said the acquisition of Spartanburg, S.C.-based Marchel and its 36,000-square-foot factory will expand its offerings of custom manufacturing capabilities and give it a presence in the U.S. The acquisition was announced March 15 by Plastifab’s private equity owners, Regimen Equity Partners in Vancouver, B.C. “The capabilities that Marchel exhibits allows us to follow our mission by strengthening our offerings through Marchel’s injection molding capabilities, providing another layer of custom solutions to our valued customers,” said Ryan Antoniadis, Plastifab president and CEO. The companies said Marchel would continue to be led day-today by Matt Pitts, son of company founder Gene Pitts.

Marchel serves customers in OEM, medical, government, automotive, and industrial applications. It has an in-house toolshop, as well as capabilities in precision machining, electrical discharge machining, plastic design, prototyping, and dimensional analysis.

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SUPPLIER NEWS – Materials distributor M. Holland Co., of Northbrook, Ill., is now distributing postconsumer recycled resins produced by Montreal-based thermoplastic compound supplier Lavergne Inc. In addition to its headquarters in Montreal, Lavergne has recycled resin manufacturing sites in Belgium, Vietnam, and Haiti.

– Baltimore, Md.-based Novatec Inc. is now the exclusive distributor for Aboni GmbH’s HT3 HydroTracer product in North and Latin America. The HT3 HydroTracer, which Aboni has been selling for more than 20 years, detects any residual water in solids, with measuring accuracy to one part per million.

– Bolton, Ont.-based granulator maker Rotogran International Inc. has appointed sales agency Industries Lafierrier, of Mascouche, Que., as its new sales representative for Quebec and the Maritimes.

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– Colourant supplier Chroma Color Corp., headquartered in McHenry, Ill., has named Gretchen Dragich as vice president of supply chain management and strategic sourcing.

– Mississauga, Ont.-based film and sheet equipment supplier Macro Engineering & Technology Inc. has named David Anzini as technical sales manager for the Southeast U.S. – Palm Beach, Fla.-based thermoforming machine maker OMV Technologies has appointed Gary Kooper as CEO. – Suwanee, Ga.-based machinery maker Sumitomo (SHI) Demag Plastics Machinery North America Inc. has named Naoto Ikeda as president.

– Screw and barrel maker Xaloy Inc., based in New Castle, Pa., has appointed Cheryl Sayer as vice president of engineering.

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HOW WE GOT HERE TH

ANNIVERSARY

Canadian Plastics turns 80 this summer, and from World War II to COVID-19, what a long, strange trip it’s been. From the industry’s earliest days and our first issue to the present, here’s a look at some memorable developments as we covered them.

By Mark Stephen, editor

Photo Credits: Canadian Plastics, Mully Cup, ABC Technologies, Polykar Inc.

N

ineteen forty-three was a tumultuous year: World War II was raging and factories throughout the West worked around the clock to supply goods for the war effort. There was a tremendous shortage of metal, wood, ceramics, natural fibres, and rubber, and as a result plastics began to come into its own as a substitute material, as engineers and designers turned to phenolics and other plastic materials to produce hundreds of new products for both the military and the civilian population. And this, in turn, prompted the creation of Canadian Plastics, with our first issue in August 1943. (We then went on hiatus until 1946 due to a paper shortage.)

No single event had a greater impact on the plastics industry than the war, and this was apparent even at the time.

“Canadian use of plastic materials has grown steadily and today is making a valuable contribution to our war production program,” our first editorial said.

“Significant, as a result of this, is the new attitude of Canadian industrial designers and engineers toward plastics, and inescapable is the fact that employment of this material is going to take place on a broad manufacturing scale.”

Plastic – from a word that originally meant “pliable and easily shaped” – predated World War II by decades, of

course, with the first plastics mainly developed as substitutes for ivory. In 1862, Alexander Parkes introduced Parkesine, the world’s first-ever manmade plastic, at the London International Exhibition, marketed as an alternative to ivory and horn that Parkes discovered while trying to develop a synthetic substitute for shellac for waterproofing. The first synthetic polymer was invented in 1869 by John Wesley Hyatt, who was inspired by a New York firm’s offer of $10,000 for anyone who could provide a substitute for – again – ivory, for use in billiard balls. By treating cellulose, derived from cotton fibre, with camphor, Hyatt discovered a plastic that could be crafted into a variety of shapes. In 1872, Hyatt and his brother patented the world’s first injection molding machine.

Fast-forward to 1907 and Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite, the first fully synthetic plastic, meaning it contained no molecules found in nature. Marketed as “the material of a thousand uses,” Bakelite could be shaped or molded into almost anything. Industry developments came regularly after that.

To name just a few, Rolls Royce started using phenol formaldehyde in its vehicle interiors in 1916, Scotch tape was introduced in 1930, nylon was developed as a synthetic silk in 1935, the first twin-

Opposite page: From black and white to colour, from the 1940s through to the 2020s, here are some images of people, products, machines, and events that have appeared in the pages of our magazine.

screw extruder was introduced in Italy in 1936, and the first commercial production of polystyrene began in Germany in 1937.

And the industry was also building in Canada. William Zeidler of Toronto was the first Canadian to receive a patent for plastics processing for a method of polishing cellulose nitrate in 1885; Granby Manufacturing Co., of Granby Que., started making cellulose nitrate in 1908; Electroplax Ltd., of Toronto, began custom molding phenolic products in 1923; Canadian General Electric Co., of Peterborough, Ont., formed a plastics molding department in 1929; and French Ivory Products, of Toronto, installed what’s believed to be the first injection molding machine in North America in 1930.

During World War II, plastic production in Canada and the U.S. increased by 250 and 300 per cent respectively. The surge continued after the war ended in 1945; exploded in the 1950s; and became part of the zeitgeist in the 1960s, immortalized in the 1969 film The Graduate, with its confident prediction that “the future is one word: plastics.”

And as evidenced in thousands of cutting-edge applications in every product sector since then, plastics did indeed become – and still is – the future.

On the following pages is a look at just some of the products, trends, events, issues, and news developments that Canadian Plastics has covered over the past eight decades.

June 2023 Canadian Plastics

13

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ANNIVERSARY

The 1940s

The 1950s

The 1960s

Noteworthy news/events: World War II; the Society of the Plastics Industry of Canada (SPI Canada) and the Society of Plastics Sales Engineers (later shortened to the Society of Plastics Engineers [SPE]) are both formed in 1942; Canada Wire & Cable Co. of Toronto produces the first polyethylene (PE) resins in North America; Canada Resins & Chemicals Ltd., of Shawinigan, Que., starts producing PVC; Percy Hermant Ltd. of Toronto produces the first nylon molded product in Canada – a tumbler; Dow Chemical of Canada, in Sarnia, Ont., begins making polystyrene (PS) resins; Wentworth Mold is founded in 1947; Canadian General Rubber Co., of Cambridge, Ont., installs the first Canadian-built injection molding machine.

Noteworthy news/events: The Toronto section of SPE forms in 1950; in 1953 Robert Schad founds the machine shop that will become Husky Injection Molding Systems; Hurricane Hazel floods Woodbridge Moulded Products’ Toronto facility with six feet of water in 1954; Visking Co., of Lindsay, Ont., installs “the largest piece of equipment in Canada,” an extruder that produces rolls of PE film 24 feet wide; the founding in 1954 of Nova Chemicals Corp. in Alberta (originally called Alberta Gas Trunk Line); DuPont Co. of Canada introduces Delrin acetal resin to the Canadian market in 1957; Magna International Inc. gets its first auto parts contract in 1959.

Noteworthy news/events: Polymer Corp. (later Polysar) opened the first Canadian ABS resin manufacturing plant at Sarnia, Ont. in 1964; B.F. Goodrich’s plant in Kitchener, Ont. supplies Imperial Oil with 30,000 feet of PVC pipe for its gas fields in Alberta; Imperial Oil buys Polybottle, one of Toronto’s largest blow molders; Union Carbide opens a plastics processing plant in 1964, with a core emphasis on packaging; PE gas tanks introduced by GM Truck and Coach Division in 1967; Expo 67; Neil Armstrong plants a nylon flag on the Moon in 1969.

Profitable products: Phone housings; Tupperware LDPE containers; Formica; Lycra; Plexiglas; chewing gum.

Significant trends and developments: Large tonnage injection presses; steamheated molds; development of Alberta’s oil and gas fields; the industry spreads beyond Ontario and Quebec, as mold shops open in British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

Hot-button issues: Post-war inflation; trade with Japan; flammable toys made of cellulose nitrate.

Profitable products: Vinyl tile; the Hula Hoop; the Frisbee by Wham-O; Lego plastic blocks; Barbie dolls; Eames plastic furniture; glass fibre-reinforced plastic boats.

Significant trends and developments: The growing use of chemical additives; PVC finds wider uses; raw resin manufacturing in Canada increases throughout the decade.

Hot-button issues: Increased importation of foreign-made toys; Canadian firms lobby the Tariff Board for increasing tariffs and duties on imported raw materials and plastic products.

Profitable products: Bottles, industrial extrusions, household/kitchen wares, containers and appliances, and skylights; TV cabinets; rotationally molded tanks – including hot tubs – and toys; DuPont’s Kevlar.

Significant trends and developments: Screw plastification replaces plunger units on injection molding machines; blow molding technology comes of age; vinyl use expands in automotive and furniture; PS foam; molding of polypropylene (PP) gains popularity.

Hot-button issues: Tariff protection; the 1965 Auto Pact between Canada and the U.S.; price cutting and “unfair” competition with U.S. processors.

June 2023 Canadian Plastics

15

TH

ANNIVERSARY

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

Noteworthy news/events: Extrusion shop Royal Plastics opens in Toronto in 1970; OEMs aren’t able to meet demand for new injection molding machines in 1973; plastic in the Canadarm robotic space arm; Canadian Plastics Pioneers organization founded; the Ontario chapter of the SPE hits an all-time membership high of more than 850 members; late-decade recession.

Noteworthy news/events: Weak Canadian dollar during the first half of the decade; by 1981, plastic surpasses all other materials to become the most used in the world; the first artificial heart, made mainly of polyurethane, is implanted in a human in 1982; major recession in 1982; first polymer bank notes issued, in Australia, in 1986; the Free Trade Agreement of 1988; the introduction of triangular recycling symbols relating to plastics.

Noteworthy news/events: Extruder Crila Plastics, of Mississauga, Ont., is named one of Canada’s 50 best managed companies by The Financial Post; Ron Evason, the popular and influential president of SPI Canada, dies of cancer in 1995; ice storm in eastern Ontario and Quebec in 1998 leaves businesses without power for weeks; the Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA) is formed from four separate organizations, including SPI Canada; founding of the Canadian Plastics Training Centre at Humber College in Toronto.

Profitable products: PE stretch film; fascia, grilles, and bumper components in automobiles; multi-layer industrial PE shipping bags; plastic patio furniture; PET beverage bottles; skateboards and kayaks; “living hinges” on bottles connecting two plastic parts.

Profitable products: Pink plastic flamingos; compact discs; the slim plastic Swatch watch made of 51 mainly plastic components; plastic soft drink bottles, including for Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

Significant trends and developments: Advancements made in raw materials handling and other auxiliary equipment; colourant technology expands, offering processors more sophisticated options; structural foam molding sees wider commercial use; introduction of ribbing in PVC pipe; CAD/CAM software and CNC machining of molds; by 1979, plastic production overtakes steel production in North America; mobile telephones; development of polylactic acid (PLA).

Significant trends and developments: Six Sigma quality improvement process; 3D printing begins; widespread adoption of personal computers and fax machines; widespread movement among domestic firms to a Chinese supplier system; development of the gravimetric batch blender; an explosion of new moldmaking operations rapidly turns Canada, and in particular Windsor, Ont., into one of the moldmaking hot spots in North America.

Hot-button issues: Autonomy for SPI Canada; value of curbside recycling; the 1973 oil embargo.

Hot-button issues: Growing consumer concerns about recycling and plastic waste; free trade; ozone layer depletion.

16 Canadian Plastics June 2023

Profitable products: Plastic lumber; plastic corks; nylon intake manifolds; pickup truck bed liners; auto body moldings; thermoformed packaging; Dyson vacuum cleaners.

Significant trends and developments: Solid modeling software; rapid prototyping; thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs); thin-wall injection molding; processors buy more all-electric machines; twoplaten and tiebarless injection molding machines; the internet; aluminum molds; ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Hot-button issues: Plastics operator training/certification; safety of vinyl water pipes; plasticizers used in PVC blood bags. www.canplastics.com

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ANNIVERSARY

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s (so far)

Noteworthy news/events: CPIA launches plastics intern program; four moldmaking associations form the Canadian Machine, Tool, Die and Mold Federation; private equity firm Onex Corp. buys Husky Injection Molding Systems for $960 million; auto parts maker Progressive Moulded Products Ltd. goes out of business, triggering a massive machinery auction; Nova Chemicals bought by Abu Dhabi’s state oil company International Petroleum Investment Co.; massive fire at Horizon Plastics in Cobourg, Ont., in 2005.

Noteworthy news/events: The Bank of Canada introduces the first polymer banknotes in 2011; Plast-Ex and Expoplast trade shows bought by UBM Canon, become biannual; founding of injection molding machine maker Athena Automation in Vaughan, Ont.; CPIA and Plastics Industry Association partner on Operation Clean Sweep and other initiatives; a plastic bag ban is introduced in Toronto and immediately repealed.

Noteworthy news/events: The COVID19 pandemic; CPIA folds and becomes a division of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada; multiple international trade shows cancelled due to the pandemic, including NPE 2021; Heartland Polymers begins production; Nova Sclairtech begins production; injection molding machine maker Niigon Technologies (formerly Athena Automation) goes out of business; Canada ratifies the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada (USMCA) free trade agreement.

Profitable products: Crocs, initially introduced for boaters; Boeing 787 (nicknamed “Boeing’s Plastic Dream”), with plastic making up 50 per cent of all materials in the plane.

Significant trends and developments: Energy efficiency in molding and extrusion machines; taking advantage of SR&ED tax incentives; lightweighting of auto parts; in 2005, San Francisco becomes the first North American city to institute a plastic bag ban; “Great Recession” of 2007-2009.

Hot-button issues: Greenhouse gas emissions; offshoring to China and IP protection; the Canadian dollar reaches parity with the greenback in 2007; health concerns about bisphenol A (BPA).

18 Canadian Plastics June 2023

Profitable products: Adirondack and Muskoka chairs made from recycled plastics; the iPad. Significant trends and developments: Industry 4.0; biopolymers move into auto applications; 3D printing starts to reach the mainstream; bulletproof and implantable polymers; Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the United Nations unveil the “New Plastics Economy Global Commitment” to ensure 100 per cent of packaging can be safely reused, recycled, or composted by 2025; Canada moves to ban single-use plastic as early as 2021 under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA).

Hot-button issues: Ocean pollution, including the so-called “Great Pacific Garbage Patch;” single-use plastic bag bans.

Profitable products: Nylon masks; C95 respirators; anti-COVID plastics barriers; the Mully Cup golf ball lifter.

Significant trends and developments: Increased demand for single-use plastic; working from home and Zoom meetings; increased use of automation, including collaborative robots; cloud-based software; Industry 5.0; smart polymers that can change colour, transparency, and shape in response to external stimuli; built-in antimicrobial technology.

Hot-button issues: The “Great Resignation;” single-use plastic bans take effect in Canada; plastics manufacturing declared “toxic” in Canada under CEPA; supply chain challenges; raw material CPL shortages. www.canplastics.com

robots & automation

THERMOFORMING AUTOMATION

REACHES FOR MORE

As thermoformers look for faster production rates with higher capacities while also grappling with labour shortages, automation has become a necessity. And virtually all automation suppliers now have enhanced equipment offerings.

F

or manufacturers, the COVID19 pandemic created whole new sets of problems – such as supply chain issues – but it also accelerated, and expanded, challenges that already existed. The skilled labour shortage that predated the global crisis became a shortage of workers in general, for example, and continues today even as other effects of the pandemic recede.

Indeed, workforce issues that impact the ability to meet production output and deliver customer orders now feel like a permanent problem for many shops.

One solution is to automate the factory floor as much as possible, since automated systems are by definition less labour-intensive – instead of requiring one or more operators per production line, a single operator can cover multiple lines.

Which is why, since the pandemic, there’s been a high global demand for automation among all types of manufacturers.

A LABOUR PROBLEM

In plastics, this means more robotic automation in injection molding, extrusion, and blow molding operations, as processors look for solutions to improve efficiencies and mitigate ongoing worker shortages. And also – and this doesn’t get as much notice – in thermoforming, which is a versatile process famous for its costeffectiveness and relative simplicity, and which works with both thick- and thin-

22 Canadian Plastics June 2023

Vacuum end-of-arm tooling for a 25-cavity container.

gauge plastic sheets, giving it a variety of uses. Thermoforming automation is a growing trend, and not just because of labour shortages, but also because of increasing hygiene requirements for the production process; and because a new generation of higher speed thermoforming equipment is being at least partially hampered by the inability of human workers to handle parts at high speed. For high-volume production, robotics is increasingly employed to automatically perform part inspection and downstream packaging and palletizing functions.

Automation has always been a benefit by facilitating higher, more predictable throughput, but a popular pre-pandemic perception was that some shops resisted installing automation for fear of having to let employees go. To the extent it was ever true, the pandemic has probably killed this concern for good. “The obvious problem nowadays isn’t letting workers go, it’s

finding them in the first place and then keeping them, and this has really boosted the number of thermoformers looking for automated alternatives,” said Nate Pelis, sales manager with Ranger Automation Systems. “Before the pandemic, the mentality at many thermoforming shops had been to throw another employee on the line to handle part removal or packaging – I used to see operators climbing around machines, picking very thin parts. I don’t see this as often anymore, because labour is just too valuable.”

Also before the pandemic, a typical thermoforming plant would allot space for anywhere from three to five workers for pulling, separating, and counting stacks of product. And this has changed too. “The need to keep lines running during the pandemic while also following social distancing requirements created a perfect storm – suddenly we had customers that needed automation immediately, especially on the back end of the machines,” Pelis continued. “And the demand has kept up because they see the efficiencies.”

Besides that, the need for a more hygienic manufacturing process is a driving factor. “This requirement was especially visible during the pandemic in recent years,” said Mehmed Handanagic, sales manager for automation with Kiefel Technologies. www.canplastics.com

All photos courtesy of Ranger Automation Systems Inc.

By Mark Stephen, editor

robots & automation CONCRETE EXAMPLES

The trend towards automation is taking place throughout the thermoforming process, beginning with new fully integrated systems. Riverside Medical Packaging, the manufacturer of Shawpak thermoforming machines, introduced one such fully integrated system for automated packaging of medical devices during the height of the pandemic. Built around Shawpak’s standard 32-20 rotary machine, the turnkey system features an inline thermal transfer printer, a vision inspection and rejection system, and robot loading of injection molded medical devices into the thermoforming machine.

Shawpak also incorporates a multi-lane slitter that slits or perforates the packs containing the individual devices after they’re formed and sealed. The entire system’s footprint is about 4 feet wide by 6.5 feet long – a big space saving, company officials said, given that a traditional thermoforming line is anywhere from 10 to 30 feet long.

And Kiefel’s newest automation solution is the Kiefel Speed Automation (KSA), a modular system that’s a good match with the company’s Speedformer KMD series, and which can be integrated into both new and existing systems. “One KSA module forms full stacks from partial stacks, for example of food trays and lids; another module takes cartons from a box magazine, erects them, and inserts a protective bag for hygienic packaging if required; a third also includes an automatic labelling unit and palletizing unit consisting of two stations, making it possible to palletize in one station while the other is being emptied,” said Mehmed Handanagic.

CONTROL FREAKS

Automating part handling can create a gap in the inspection process traditionally done by operators, which is why another area being targeted by new thermoforming automation is quality control through vision inspection technology. “We’re definitely seeing more interest in this among many companies,” said John Tuohy, a member of Fanuc America’s executive sales team. And it’s reversing a trend, some OEMs say, since until recently it was assumed by many shops that costs

would outweigh the benefits of vision inspection systems in thermoforming. A true accounting of costs will include quality – for example, reject rates, part failure, and scrap rates – but what’s more difficult to measure is the reputational cost associated with bad lots. In truth, some OEMs say, quality control was always a particular problem for thermoforming. “Thermoforming can be vulnerable to imperfect parts, for example parts with stacking features such as the stacking shoulder on cups that aren’t properly formed,” said Mark Strachan, chief innovation and technical officer with thermoforming machine maker OMV Technologies. “It seems like a miniscule problem, but when 30 imperfect cups are nested in a box, that stack length variation can be up to an inch shorter than the other stacks, and can fool the customer into thinking they’ve been shortchanged on the number of parts in a box. These stack features also ensure parts are easily de-nested from each other at the automated filling lines and not causing any costly stoppages.”

To automate the process and improve efficiency and effectiveness, computer vision and artificial intelligence techniques are being applied. “An example of the use of a vision inspection system is the ability to measure the overall length of a row of cups before boxing and triggering an eject system that would push the short stack aside for regrinding,” Strachan said.

“These systems also check for ovality, flange thickness, sidewall accuracy, black specks, and for the right printing so that the right SKU goes in the right box.” And while reject rates will increase initially, Strachan said, the use of these systems will ensure higher output efficiencies and more quality parts in the box. “Identifying imperfections or flaws before parts are packed and shipped can substantially insure the bottom line,” he said.

The drive for more automated quality control is due also to the rise of the need for downgauging, which allows thermoformers to offer the same products with higher product-to-package ratios by using thinner materials. “A cup that used to be 20 grams now weighs 15 grams, which affects the final functionality of the part – it might collapse more easily when the lid is applied,” Strachan said. “Automa-

Robot-stacked parts being delivered to a packer through light curtain safety guarding.

tion can weigh the cup and kick it out if its weight doesn’t fall within the required range. Currently, we can run 200 cups through a camera in just a few seconds.”

THE BACK END

Perhaps the key focus for thermoforming automation is at the back end of the process – the labour-intensive, repetitive areas of part removal and part handling that usually involve human operators waiting around, and that thermoformers naturally want to automate first. “One of the easiest applications to start investigating is part removal followed by trimming and deburring,” John Tuohy said.

But the fact that it’s a common concern doesn’t mean there are one-size-fits-all answers. From simple A/B stacking mechanisms to robotic palletizing systems, there are a lot of ways for thermoformers to move parts. Perhaps the most common automation approach is to use a two-axis handling system where formed parts are clamped and broken from the web as part of the basic stacking system, then transferred via linear drives to a conveyor belt. The parameters for the stacking movements are set through a teach-in mode. Through optimization, speeds up to 40 cycles per minute are possible with standard up-stacking motions. Indeed, high-speed automation is widely used in the thermoforming sector, period. “Highspeed is now a prerequisite, especially because the outputs of the thermoformers are so high due to high cycle rates and the large number of products that are produced in a short time,” Mehmed Handanagic said. Other options include 180° or 90° rotations to create A/B stacks. Linear automation traditionally dominated the June 2023 Canadian Plastics

23

robots & automation

thermoforming sector, Handanagic continued, but three- and six-axis robots – which are frequently used in injection molding – are gaining popularity as the need for flexibility grows.

One area that’s traditionally been challenging has been automating part handling at the trim press and end-of-line wrapping, case packing, and palletizing, due in part to the wide range of products, limiting “universal” automation designs.

For thermoformers running non-servoeject trim presses, BMG recently introduced what’s being called a first-of-itskind automation solution – the Mantis Robotic Trim Press Handler, developed

by NAS Nalle Automation Systems, a BMG company. Described as the industry’s first robotic system that reliably handles the flow of parts ejected from any non-servo trim press, including those made by BMG competitors, the fully automated system reportedly can reduce labour requirements by up to 75 per cent,

and the modular robotic design allows for tool changeovers in under an hour.

Ranger Automation’s TR series robots, meanwhile, have ultra-high-speed servo drives that allow part extraction and stacking at cycle times as fast as two seconds, and can fit any new or existing thermoformer, with configurations available to stack parts off the side or at the end of the line, or with a downstacker option that stacks directly under the line onto indexing conveyors.

However it’s accomplished, once the thermoformed parts are stacked, they can be moved to final packing stations, which can be as simple as automated sleeving systems or as complex as fully articulated robotic arms that place stacks of nested product into pre-made boxes. “Technically, the automation for the back end of thermoforming is actually very similar to robotics for injection molding or blow molding,” said Mark Strachan. “The IML injection molding automation has been so

good for so many years now that all types of geometries can be done. In the thermoforming IML space – called TIML – the OEMs have been behind the ball, but we’re catching up and can now offer much more sophisticated TIML automation, in part because of the drive to single-source materials like PET, which favours thermoforming over injection molding because thermoforming can thin-gauge it much better and with more cavitation.”

COMFORT LEVEL

A factor for thermoformers to keep in mind – particularly for first-time automation buyers – is the level of training and experience required of the operators, as well as the level of comfort and ability to interact with and support the automation.

Depending on the application, this is where a collaborative robot – or cobot – might prove useful. Compared with industrial robots, cobots’ ease of use and smaller sizes make them accessible, even

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robots & automation for thermoformers that previously might have rejected automation due to concerns over cost or the perceived hassle of handling high-mix, low-volume work that would require constant reprogramming. “I’ve seen many thermoformers use cobots for simple, light-duty tasks that need accuracy, like applying adhesive labels,” said Nate Pelis. “Since thermoformers tend to be experimental, some shops buy a cobot just to try it out, and usually they find a good use for it. It’s the only time I might recommend buying the automation first and finding the application for it second.”

Even – or especially – as more thermoformers look to automate more areas of production, it’s important to remember that the old adage of buyer beware still applies. “I receive many calls from thermoformers that have bought used automation and can’t get it to work the way they want,” Mark Strachan said. “Sometimes we can tweak it to fit into a particular thermoforming line, and sometimes it’s a lost cause because there are too many components that would need to be changed. I’ve also seen it happen with new automation, which I think is attributable either to poor communication between the customer and the OEM, or because the customer changed the geometry or stack height of the parts after ordering the automation.”

One reason this latter scenario risks happening is because of supply chain problems currently wreaking havoc with delivery dates, making it more likely than ever that a process might change between the automation order and its delivery. Nor are lead times getting any shorter, even as the pandemic recedes from view. “The reliance on overseas electronics is definitely impacting our lead and delivery times,” said Nate Pelis. “There are a lot of logistical steps that go into building an automation system, and we have very little control over them.”

In the end, it feels as though the genie is finally out of the bottle – automation is gaining major importance for thermoformers for a host of reasons. There’s no going back, but it still has to be approached the right way: by the thermoformer doing a deep dive into its manufacturing process with the OEM, with detailed conversations and clarifying expectations during the design phase of any project, including in-depth discussions about operating scenarios along with the benefits and potential process CPL changes expected with automation.

RESOURCE LIST BMG/NAS Nalle Automation Systems (Knoxville, Tenn.); www.bmg-solutions.com; 865-777-9477 Fanuc Canada Ltd. (Mississauga, Ont.); www.fanucamerica.com; 905-812-2300 Kiefel Technologies/Brueckner Group USA Inc. (Dover, N.H.); www.kiefel.com; 603-929-3900 OMV Technologies (Palm Beach, Fla.); www.omvtechnologies.com; 833-626-7872 Ranger Automation Systems Inc. (Millbury, Mass.); www.thermoformingautomation.com; 508-865-0151 Riverside Medical Packaging Co. Ltd./Shawpak (San Diego, Calif.); www.shawpakusa.com; 858-412 5167

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SIZEABLE QUESTION Whether to use a granulator or a shredder is a size reduction question that’s been confronting (and sometimes confounding) plastics processors for decades. Here’s guidance from some experts.

W

e’re calling it: Given the high prices of resin, the supply chain problems hampering delivery, and the trend towards circular economy initiatives, the days of plastics processors treating their scrap as an afterthought are over. Scrap – both startup waste and imperfect product – is just too valuable these days to throw away, and reclaiming it through size reduction might just make the difference between profit and loss.

But in order for a plastics processor to get the most from its scrap – whether it’s turned into process-ready regrind for inhouse production or sold to others for recycling – it has to be reduced to a manageable and uniform size. Which is where granulation and shredding equipment comes in.

The problem is, since shredders and granulators both reduce the size of scrap plastic, it’s easy to think of them interchangeably – to think that any of them are equally up to the task of reducing plastic in the same manner. And just to make it more difficult, much of the different kinds of scrap that can be generated in a plastics processing plant – pipe and profiles, sprues and runners, film and sheet, and small and large molded parts – can theoretically be size-reduced by both granulators and shredders.

28 Canadian Plastics June 2023

But confusing the two is a mistake; worse is actually using them interchangeably, which could cost your company the thousands of dollars you’d hoped to save by reclaiming scrap in the first place, because usually you won’t get the particle size you want. It’s not the most common problem in size reduction, OEMs say, but it does happen, mostly with used machines that are either inherited or bought at auction or from a broker. “The used market for size reduction equipment is very extensive, and you can often find a granulator or shredder available for half the price of a new machine,” said Joe Platek, business development manager for size reduction with ACS Group, which owns the Cumberland brand of granulators and shredders. “But just because it’s a great deal doesn’t make it the right equipment for the job.”

So, how do you determine which of the two size reduction technologies is the right one for your needs? You begin by a) understanding the working principles of each; which then allows you to b) understand the differences between them, which are significant. Granulators, which are a common sight in plastics processing plants, primarily work by shearing material into fine, uniform particles the size of virgin pellets, just like with scissors. The range of granulators available is extremely

broad, and can be classified into two main groups: beside-the-machine models used to grind relatively small volumes of sprues, runners, off-spec parts, and edge trim from film lines for immediate recycling back into the process; and bigger, more powerful central granulators that are often located in a room separate from the production floor, and which are used to chop large volumes of scrap, often from multiple processing lines or molding cells.

Both granulator types, though, operate at high speeds with relatively low torque – even so-called “low-speed” granulators have rotors that turn at upwards of 190 rpm and standard-speed granulators operate at 400 to 500 rpm or more.

Shredders are the opposite in that respect: they tend to operate at lower speeds, usually between 100 to 130 rpm, with high torque. Shredders tear the plastic materials apart, and can chew through almost anything, generally reducing big chunks into smaller, manageable pieces – but not to a small, uniform particle size comparable to virgin pellets. “Shredders in single-shaft designs, which cut down against one or more stationary bed knives, are preferred for plastics,” said Greg Parent, the Canadian sales agent for Vecoplan. “Dualshaft shredders aren’t used much in plastics anymore.” www.canplastics.com

All photos courtesy of Weima America Inc.

By Mark Stephen, editor

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size reduction

KEY QUESTIONS

When deciding between a shredder and a granulator, a series of questions need to be considered, centred around the volume and type of scrap to be processed, the feeding method, and the final required condition and end-use of the shredded or granulated bits.

Typically, granulators don’t have a minimum throughput rate, whereas shredders do. A properly sized granulator can chop thousands of pounds of scrap as easily as a few pounds, with the only limiting factors being the size and configuration of the feed opening and cutting chamber and the need to avoid over-feeding and jamming the rotor. “The bigger granulators today – 150 to 200 horsepower – can handle large parts provided they’re not too thick,” said Dave Miller, general manager for size reduction with Conair Group. “With granulators, it’s more about the thickness of the scrap.”

Shredders, on the other hand, don’t normally work efficiently – and sometimes won’t work at all – at extremely low throughputs, especially single-shaft shredders, which use a horizontal hydraulic ram to drive scrap material into the cutting area at the intersection of the rotor and the stationary knives. “The more scrap there is in the shredder compartment and the heavier it is, the easier it is for the ram to push it forward into the rotor,” Miller said. “And unlike granulators, whose rotors are fed scrap

Plastic injection lumps in a shredder.

by gravity, shredders monitor and control the feed of the material into the rotor with the ram to assure that scrap feed rates are optimized for aggressive shredding without overloading.”

And the type of scrap material being size-reduced also matters. Granulators can handle a range of small, medium, and even large parts, provided the parts are thin-walled and the scrap fits

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Purgings from a shredder (left) compared to smaller, more even regrind from a granulator.

in the feed opening. “Good materials for granulators are low to medium volumes of blow molded and injection molded parts, thermoformed materials, runners, sprues, bottles, profiles, and trim scrap,” said Andrew White, inside sales manager for plastics with Weima America. “For shredders, meanwhile, all the above-mentioned are suitable – as long as they’re being batch-fed – as well as large blow molded, injection molded, rotational molded, whole or half gaylord boxes, broken bales and even full bales, film, and plastic purge.” When it comes to these off-spec rolls of plastic film and fibre, OEMs say, special cutters are available for these shredder applications to ensure that long strips don’t get wrapped around the rotor. A problem with shredders, however, is that they can have a tough time with loose, undensified objects. “Pipes, bottles, and other lightweight objects have the tendency to bounce around in the shredder, away from the blades, so that cutting efficiency goes way down,” said Mike Cyr, president of Rotogran International. “This type of loose, lightweight scrap doesn’t pose a problem if it’s manually or conveyorfed to the cutting chamber of a granulator.”

THE PURGE

Plastic purge, mentioned above, is another dividing line between granulators and shredders. Usually generated during injection molding startup or as a waste product during extrusion, purgings and other similar lumps should definitely not be fed into a granulator, most OEMs say – even a central granulator with a hog rotor and plenty of horsepower – for the simple reason that most are simply too big and thick: they can be up to several inches thick and weigh thirty or forty pounds. “Putting purgings into a granulator reduces throughput and increases wear at a minimum, and can potentially cause power spikes,” Andrew White said. “Worstcase, they can damage the granulator – I’ve seen instances where the frame/housing has fractured and they have to be welded back together.” To avoid these problems, companies that recycle cold purgings with granulators often cut them into smaller pieces

32 Canadian Plastics June 2023

using a band saw or a similar tool. “The caveat is, some shops don’t allow band saws on the floor because they can be dangerous,” said Joe Platek. “For them, a shredder may be a necessary investment if they want to reuse the purgings.”

There’s a bit of grey area, though, when it comes to regrinding purgings of a certain size and temperature, some OEMs say.

“Small, warm purgings can be put into a granulator that’s been customized to handle them, such as with an open rotor to allow airflow and water-cooling jackets around it,” said Mike Cyr. “But if the purgings are either too warm or actually hot, taken right after the purge, they can smear on the granulator’s side walls, causing fines.” This same modified granulator could also handle size reduction of blow molded tabs and tails, Cyr continued, which are warm and often roughly equal in size to purgings.

Shredders, on the other hand, are ideal for purgings of any size, period.

FEEDING TIME

When it comes to feeding, the difference between granulators and shredders is stark. Granulators aren’t built to be shock loaded – instead, the material has to be metered in. “One of the compromises with granulators is that they need to be fed smaller amounts of scrap continuously, either by hand or by an automated feeding system such as a robot, conveyor, or some other special feeding mechanism,” said Greg Parent. “Over-feeding it with scrap can flood the cutting chamber and jam the rotor.”

Shredders are just the opposite. Designed for aggressive shredding, they require only the very simplest feeding systems, and actually work best when heavy, dense scrap is simply dumped into the feed hopper, with the hydraulic ram that’s built into the bottom of the hopper then pushing the scrap into the rotor – often called the “dump-and-run” strategy. “Most singleshaft shredders control the introduction of the material to the cutting rotor rather than relying on gravity,” Parent said. “By having the material sit on the shredder floor and using a ram that www.canplastics.com

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size reduction

can speed up, slow down, stop, or reverse based on the amp load decreases,” said Andrew White. of the rotor, jams usually don’t happen and operator intervention And if floor space constraints are a factor, OEMs say, conisn’t required.” And if the rotor does jam, he continued, it can sider stacking the machines, with the shredder on top. “This quickly reverse to clear the problem. “Shredders not only dispose saves space and also allows the granulator to reach and maintain very easily of one or even two full its maximum throughput capacity,” gaylords of material at a time, they Mike Cyr said. “The only downside to Granulators – even the also save on labour because the operaa stacked system is that it doesn’t low-speed models – operate at tor can then walk away and do other allow for metal detection, but this is high speeds with relatively low jobs,” Parent said. more of an issue for recyclers – it torque, while shredders operate shouldn’t be a problem when sizeat lower speeds with high THE ENDGAME reducing in-house scrap, which is a Of all the differences between granuknown quantity and won’t have fortorque. lators and shredders, probably the bigeign materials like tramp metal.” gest is the end-product: the form of the Some stacked systems are sold as a scrap after size reduction. Shredders, as mentioned, tear the single unit from a single vendor. Zerma’s ZCS series stacked scrap up, with the sizing determined in part by the size of the shredder-granulator combination, for example, provides a comholes in the shredder classifying screen – which can be as large pact size reduction system in which the shredder and granulator as 2 inches, or 50.8 millimeters, in diameter to less than half that are individually driven, allowing for better control of the comsize – but with even the smallest hole diameter still producing a plete process, Zerma officials said – the shredder is driven via a shred that’s larger than granulated material. “A common com- gearbox on the shaft end on one side of the rotor, and the granuplaint is that customers use a shredder with a very small screen lator is driven by a separate belt drive. hoping for finer particles, but they just get smaller shredded In the end, when choosing a granulator or a shredder – or a material, with rough edges, that’s still larger than virgin pellet- granulator and a shredder – it’s critical to examine the working size,” Mike Cyr said. “Using smaller screen sizes with the shred- principles and characteristics of each piece of equipment as well der also causes production values to drop dramatically.” With as the needs of your factory. “There are some applications where granulators, sizing screen holes are usually one-quarter to three- a granulator will handle large parts and that’s sufficient for the eighths of an inch, or 6.35 to 9.5 millimeters, in diameter, so the process, and other times where it can’t and a shredder should be particles passing through tend to be granular, close to the size of brought in for pre-sizing,” Joe Platek said. “Either way, it’s virgin pellets. always best to discuss the full application with a technical expert All of which matters if the goal is to recycle the material back so you can weigh the options and find the best fit.”

CPL into the process. “Shredded material usually needs a secondary granulation process to have the optimal size and uniformity RESOURCE LIST needed to flow and blend with virgin material and other addi- ACS Group/Cumberland (New Berlin, Wis.); tives in the processing machine,” said Dave Miller. “On the other www.cumberlandplastics.com; 262-641-8600 hand, shredding alone is usually very effective if the material is going to be shipped off to a recycler, because uniformity doesn’t Conair Group (Cranberry Township, Pa.); www.conairgroup.com; 724-584-5500 matter quite as much as long as the size is manageable.”

Auxiplast Inc. (Varennes, Que.); In short, shops looking to reduce small plastic scraps into www.auxiplast.com; 866-922-2894 Dier International Plastics Inc. (Unionville, Ont.); valuable, process-ready regrind definitely need granulators, www.dierinternational.com; 416-219-0509 since a shredder won’t cut it for that job. “Anytime a processor Turner Group Inc. (Seattle, Wash.); is using just a shredder, it’s probably the wrong machine, unless www.turnergroup.net; 206-769-3707 they’re recouping purgings,” said Mike Cyr. They may even want the two-stage solution of a shredder and granulator paired Rotogran International Inc. (Bolton, Ont.); together, in order to avoid the labour-intensive prep work www.rotogran.com; 905-738-0101 Industries Laferriere (Mascouche, Que.); needed to get heavy, dense scrap such as purgings and thickwww.industrieslaferriere.ca; 450-477-8880 walled pipe or sheet ready for granulation. With this arrangement, the shredder performs the coarse size reduction work, Vecoplan LLC (Archdale, N.C.); with minimum operator involvement, and the scrap is then fed www.vecoplanllc.com; 336-447-3573 Greg Parent; 416-678-0154 into the granulator for final sizing to yield a consistent, uniform feed material. In this very common scenario, the processor doesn’t have to choose one or the other while still processing at Weima America Inc. (Fort Mill, S.C.); www.weima.com; 888-440-7170 a good rate. “Pairing the shredder with a granulator ultimately gives you the best result, and we’re seeing more interest in Zerma America (Northbrook, Ill.); these two-stage systems from our customers as the labour force www.zerma.com; 847-291-1300

34 Canadian Plastics June 2023

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recycling

SOIL STRATEGY

Not-for-profit industry stewardship organization Cleanfarms is working to help Canadian farmers recycle their agricultural plastic waste.

By Mark Stephen, editor

REVERSING A TREND

Founded in 2010, Cleanfarms took over the activities of an agricultural plastic collection program that was started by the pesticide industry back in 1989. “Cleanfarms began with just myself, and today we’ve grown to 20 staff in six provinces,” said executive director Barry Friesen. “We partner with our members, agri-retailers, and municipalities across the country to help growers better manage their farm waste by operating recycling and safe disposal programs and establishing collection locations where farmers can bring their waste plastic. Our members include leading developers, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers of pest control products, fertilizers, seed, and equine and livestock medications.”

The trend that Cleanfarms is trying to reverse is that, historically, discarded agricultural waste has ended up in landfills, or been burned or buried, sometimes on farm property.

“Landfills are difficult to site and expensive to manage; and

36 Canadian Plastics June 2023

Twine in Cleanfarms agricultural collection bags ready for recycling.

plastic buried in a landfill doesn’t decompose, so it fills up valuable space,” Friesen said. “And burn barrels and other backyard incineration methods are also problematic because they can release harmful emissions in addition to wasting valuable resources.” The collection locations established by Cleanfarms are often agricultural retailer outlets, which makes them handy for the farmers. “Each plastic resin is typically unique, and we try to collect them in single streams – bale wrap all goes together, for instance, and so do grain bags and super sacks,” Friesen said. “By keeping the materials separate at the point of collection, we don’t need to use municipal recycling facilities to sort them for us.”

The end goal, Friesen said, is to achieve a circular economy for agricultural plastic waste, in keeping with the federal government’s regulatory campaign of achieving zero plastic waste by 2030. “As opposed to incinerating and landfilling, we want to make new plastic products from old plastic products,” he said. “After it’s sorted, shredded, and melted, processing facilities can put almost all of this plastic waste to good use. We’ve worked with manufacturers to make new pesticide containers from old pesticide containers, for example, and a big market at the moment is recycling farm containers into farm drainage tiles. Aside from a very small percentage of heavily contaminated waste that will always have to be incinerated, used agricultural plastic can theoretically go into any new plastics application provided it satisfies safety guidelines. There’s no technical barrier, just a cost barrier – we need economies of scale.”

PROVINCE TO PROVINCE

Cleanfarms begins with research, pilot projects or a combination of both. Projects start with a thorough analysis of applicable findings of agricultural waste characterization studies completed over various years in several provinces, and are then www.canplastics.com

Photo Credit: Cleanfarms

T

hey don’t beat their own drums about it, but farmers are among the original environmentalists. As dedicated land stewards, farmers and other agricultural growers have been protecting our open spaces, preserving natural resources, and passing productive ground from one generation to the next since long before sustainability was a thing.

Which is why plastic poses a particularly vexing problem.

Agriculture uses a huge amount of plastic – in the form of grain, fertilizer, seed, and inoculant bags; twine and netting; bale and silage wrap; greenhouse film; pesticide and nursery containers; and more – and what to do with the material when it’s no longer useful has always been a challenge.

The good news is, for the past 13 years Canadian farmers have been getting relief through Cleanfarms, a national nonprofit industry stewardship organization that helps them recycle or properly dispose of agricultural plastic waste and other waste materials generated on farms. Even better, Cleanfarms is ramping up its activities as Canadian provinces begin to mandate extended producer responsibility (EPR) frameworks that put the onus on manufacturers of agricultural plastic products and packaging to manage the materials at their end of life.

2023

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recycling

designed based on that knowledge and by testing new solutions and analyzing results. To date, Cleanfarms has developed a series of successful programs to recover and recycle or properly dispose of agricultural plastic waste and other farm waste materials, including Canadawide programs for empty pesticide and fertilizer containers both under 23 litres and over 23 litres in size; and a program to collect empty seed, pesticide, and inoculant bags that started in Eastern Canada and has now been extended west across the Prairie Provinces. Cleanfarms’ flagship program since 1989 has been for under 23 litre pesticide and fertilizer containers, which since its inception through to 2022 has collected nearly 149 million containers; and in the seed, pesticide, and fertilizer bag program, meanwhile, farmers have returned about 3,000 tonnes since inception to 2022.

Pilot programs aimed at some type of agricultural plastic are currently operating in eight provinces, Friesen said, and each is different, tailored to a province’s agricultural activities and particular culture. “What works in Quebec won’t necessarily work as well in Alberta, and pilots are extremely important for showing what works and what doesn’t – the successful pilots can be made permanent, which we did with a pilot in Prince Edward Island,” Friesen said. “Our estimates show that 62,000 tonnes of agricultural plastic are used every year in Canada, and we’re currently collecting about 10 per cent, so there’s tremendous

room for growth.” In Alberta, Cleanfarms recently developed a pilot program to recycle grain bags and plastic baler twine, which it runs on behalf of the Agricultural Plastics Recycling Group (APRG). As of December 2022, Alberta farmers have brought close to 2,270 tonnes of grain bag plastic and over 336 tonnes of used plastic baler twine to a total of 147 individual collection locations. Grain bag plastic is converted into plastic pellets to be used to make new plastic items such as agricultural film, plastic bags, composite dimensional lumber, and agricultural fence posts; or blended with virgin resin to manufacture products such as car parts and flowerpots. Research is also underway to use these pellets in the manufacturing of new grain bags, Friesen said.

Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and P.E.I. all have EPR regulations in place that transfer financial responsibility for proper disposal from taxpayers to the businesses that supply the agricultural plastic products into the market, Friesen said, which makes these three provinces logical focuses for Cleanfarms’ activities. “If you sell agricultural plastic into these provinces, you have to have a program in place to take it back, and that’s what we provide,” he said. And as of June 30 this year, Quebec will become the fourth Canadian province to mandate and regulate recovery of virtually all agricultural plastics, which is why it’s Cleanfarms’ biggest new market at the moment. “Our current programs in Que-

bec will transition from being voluntary to obligatory by July 1, so we’re working with the Recyc-Quebec Crown Corporation on an operational plan that will set out the key governance, financial, and administrative details,” Friesen said.

THE NEXT STEP

As environmentalists, farmers want to do the sustainable thing by preserving and improving the soil. When assessing the impact of Cleanfarms’ new program in Alberta, for example, APRG chair and beef producer Assar Grinde no doubt speaks for many. “This time of year, I have my cows on bale grazing and most of the twine I take off my bales is clean and easy to recycle,” he said. “Putting it in a recycling bag rather than a garbage bag was an easy habit to form, and I’m glad there’s a better place for it to go.”

But the programs can only go so far, Barry Friesen said, especially the pilots with expiry dates. “We can design collection programs all day long, but there have to be places for the collected plastic to be taken, and this is where the plastics manufacturers come in – especially since, going forward, sustainability won’t be voluntary, as more and more EPR regulations are going to force the businesses that supply agricultural plastic to also dispose of it,” he said. “The agriculture sector has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to wanting to recycle; now we need the manufacturers to step up and invest in ways to put the plastic we’re collecting back in use.” CPL

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technology showcase

FOCUS ON DRYERS Energy-saving feature now standard Advanced Blending Solutions LLC/Thoreson McCosh has made the once-optional Regeneration Power Saver a standard feature on its entire line of desiccant dryers.

The Regeneration Power Saver feature shuts down the heater the moment that the exhaust temperature of a bed being regenerated reaches a specified temperature – subsequently the bed is dry and ready to be put back into the drying process air stream.

This means the Power Saver feature will save processors energy, time, and money, and it’s especially beneficial in the winter, when the standard regeneration cycle is generally considered to be too long and wasteful.

The 14 desiccant dryers in Advanced Blending Solutions’ portfolio have capacities ranging from 25 to 2,000 pounds per hour or 11 to 910 kilograms per hour.

Advanced Blending Solutions (Wallace, Mich.); www.adv-blend.com; 906-914-4180 En-Plas Inc. (Toronto); www.en-plasinc.com; 416-286-3030

Wheel dryers for beside-the-press, small central applications The new AD line of wheel dryers from AEC is designed to provide precise, high-performance moisture removal for most beside-the-press drying applications and small central systems.

Available in three styles – ADC, ADP, and ADW (pictured) – the dryers are a direct replacement for AEC’s earlier NGX and RDX series dryers. The dryer line is available in 50 to 400 pounds per hour or 22 to 400 kilograms per hour.

The dryers feature AEC’s Smart Mode technology, which monitors both the process and return air temperatures. Airflow is automatically reduced once the temperatures are consistent and the material is completely dry.

This results in energy savings, as well as protecting the resin from over-drying and degradation.

Additional options include a weekly timer, integrated or external dewpoint sensor, integration with Industry 4.0 equipment, and a biomaterial version for drying temperatures below 50°C or 122°F. AEC (New Berlin, Wis.); www.aecinternet.com; 262-641-8600

40 Canadian Plastics April 2021

High-output dryer uses less energy

Maguire’s new Ultra 2200 series vacuum dryer is designed to meet the higher throughput requirements of the central drying, sheet extrusion, preform, and fibre markets, and offers much faster drying than conventional methods while using significantly less energy.

The Ultra 2200 utilizes a pair of identical multi-function chambers that alternate in sequence to provide an uninterrupted flow of dry material. Each chamber can self-load, heat, vacuum, and dispense – a design that allows for a compact arrangement with a relatively low ceiling height requirement.

The new dryers also incorporate load cell technology, which provides the operator with the ability to monitor and control each step of the drying process, allowing for process optimization throughout the entire drying cycle – by digitalizing the process, every granule within the drying system is actively monitored and controlled.

All Ultra dryers are covered by a five-year warranty.

Maguire Products Canada Inc./Novatec Inc. (Vaughan, Ont.); www.maguire.com; 905-879-1100

‘Smart drying’ based on resin moisture The new DryerGenie from Novatec detects moisture levels in the material before it hits the dryer and then adjusts the drying parameters accordingly, with the goal of putting an end to drying based on time.

The DryerGenie consists of two sensors: one that’s installed near the bottom of the suction probe or lance, which is typically used by molders to pull resin from gaylords to the dryer to prepare the material for processing; the second is mounted to the lance handle to measure ambient conditions. Both rely on capacitance or near-infrared technology to measure moisture in the resin on a parts per million basis long before it’s drawn into the dryer.

The sensor constantly communicates with the dryer controller and automatically adjusts drying residence time, airflow, and temperature to account for the moisture reading. The system is retrofittable to Novatec dryers purchased since 2016.

Novatec Inc./Maguire Products Canada Inc. (Vaughan, Ont.); www.novatec.com; 905-879-1100

www.canplastics.com

technology showcase

Dryers bundled with material loaders Wittmann Battenfeld recently introduced two models – the CARD primus 10 and CARD primus 20 (pictured) – to its CARD series of compressed-air resin dryers.

The CARD primus 10 has a drying silo with a 10-litre capacity, while the CARD primus 20 has a 20-litre capacity. Both of the new models come packaged with a VacuJet material loader with delivery hose and suction lance, both dryers can be mounted directly onto the machine feed, and both have adapters for quick transfer from one machine to another.

For use with injection molding machines, the CARD series feature several operation modes: a “Sleep” mode that protects the resin from over-drying if the press unexpectedly shuts down; a “Rampen” mode that raises the temperature in stages to protect sensitive resins from becoming sticky; a “Countdown” mode that signals when the resin is dry enough for startup; and a “Power” mode that provides constant drying of highly hygroscopic resins.

Wittmann Battenfeld Canada Inc. (Richmond Hill, Ont.); www.wittmann-group.com; 905-887-5355

advertising index Advertiser Absolute Haitian AMI Canadian Plastics golf CCC Plastics Davis-Standard DMS Ensign Equipment Exi-Plast Hasco Hosokawa Alpine IMS Co. Lorenz Conveying Maguire Products Nexeo Novatec Novembal PCS Co. Plastic Process Equipment Rotogran International Wittmann Zerma

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- CONGRATULATIONS -

In our 40+ years of supplying the plastics industry, we have held your esteemed publication services at the top of our list of organizations who serve and support this industry.

On behalf of everyone at Lorenz Conveying Products, we extend our heartfelt congratulations to you for 80 glorious years of success.

THE CONVEYING PRODUCTS PEOPLE.

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June 2023 Canadian Plastics CPL_Lorenz_June23.indd 1

41

2023-05-17 11:23 AM

technical tips

Dealing with off-centre gates in stretch blow molding

By Ottmar Brandau, Apex Container Tech Inc., PET All Manufacturing Inc.

There are two systems in place to guarantee rotation of the preforms: 1. Actively rotating a gear on a chain that’s connected to the mandrel. This

42 Canadian Plastics June 2023

is most often used in machines where the preforms travel though the ovens upside down.

2. Passive rotation by letting a gear (often made of plastic) connected to the mandrel slide along a grooved belt, forcing rotation. This is now more commonly used on modern machines.

In either case it’s important that the engagement of the gear is guaranteed over the entire oven length. But engagement can’t be too much, as pushing against the gear puts stress on the bearings, leading to premature failure.

In a typical setup on a continuous motion linear machine with passive rotation, the belt can be adjusted to push against the gears, but shouldn’t push hard enough to cause side-stress against the bearing. Over time the bearings may slowly fail or be impacted by dirt or oil, and some of the mandrels may not turn all the time; or the belt has some slack in some parts, whereas it’s fine in others.

This can be hard to spot, as the areas inside the oven where this happens may only be visible when certain covers have been removed. The result, however, can be dramatic. When one side of the preform stays much colder than the other, it can – and will – rip the gate vestige out of the

A bottle with an off-centre gate.

base insert well, even when there’s onemillimeter interference between stretch rod and base insert. This problem may be hard to find because the rotation may be inconsistent, with only a few spindles sometimes involved. This leads then to intermittent problems in possibly a number of cavities.

A similar problem occurs when the preforms “wobble” on the mandrels. This is typical on machines where preforms travel upside down on simple mandrels whose diameter must be smaller than the smallest preform ID in order not to cause infeed jams. The wobbling preform receives more heat on some – always the same – parts than others, and the resulting temperature differences can also lead to the described problems.

Machines where preforms travel rightside up must have better holders to prevent the preforms from falling down. As a side effect, these holders also make sure the preforms rotate evenly. There are a number of designs, most of which consist of three or four segments that have some elasticity to accommodate tolerances in preform IDs. In summary, after you’ve double checked every other possibility of offcentre gates, make sure your mandrels rotate concentrically and constantly through the ovens.

CPL Ottmar Brandau has been in blow molding since 1978 and is the author of five books describing both stretch and extrusion blow molding. Based in Markham, Ont., he is president of the consulting firm Apex Container Tech Inc. and PET All Manufacturing Inc., a machine distributor of blow machines of various types. He can be reached at obrandau@petallmfg.com. www.canplastics.com

Photo Credit: Apex Container Tech Inc.

O

ff-centre gates are the bane of stretch blow molding.

When the injection gate of the preform ends up away from the centre of the bottle, the wall further from the gate becomes thinner and the one close to the gate becomes thicker. This is simply because the material further from the centre has to travel further, thinning out in the process.

The reasons for this defect are well known: 1. Stretch rods have to be set about one millimeter lower than the preform thickness at the bottom to ensure proper seating and holding of the preform in place as the high pressure sets in.

2. Pre-blow pressure has to be low enough so as to not unseat the preform from the stretch rod during stretching.

This is, of course, also a function of preform temperature, since a warmer preform will detach itself easier.

3. Final blow pressure can’t enter the preform bubble until the stretch is firmly seated, a problem with machines where the onset of blow pressure is timed rather than taken from stretch rod position.

4. The stretch rod has to be straight.

5. Here is another, less-known reason and it has to do with the rotation of the preform inside the oven system: Problems of a lack of constant revolution can cause serious gate problems even if the preform isn’t bent or doesn’t appear to be bent when it enters the oven.

­ ­

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