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Performance Plastics: A Publication of The International Association of Plastics Distribution is published bimonthly by the International Association of Plastics Distribution® (IAPD), 6734 W. 121st Street, Overland Park, KS 66209 USA. IAPD members receive this bimonthly magazine as part of their membership dues. Subscription for non-members is $90. Third class postage paid at Shawnee Mission, Kansas, additional mailing offices and foreign mailing in accordance with Publications Agreement No. 40683057. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to IAPD, 6734 W. 121st Street, Overland Park, KS 66209 USA.
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IAPD • phone (913) 345-1005 • fax (913) 345-1006 • www.iapd.org
by Craig Saunders
Outgoing IAPD President
hat a couple of years it’s been. And I thought last year was challenging.
Even though it sounds like an exaggeration, the world has truly changed since the last time I addressed you from this stage. The last two years have been disruptive in ways we would have never expected before the pandemic.
As I think about the performance plastics industry and what we have all been through, I’ve recognized some “universal truths” that apply to the industry as well as, perhaps, most of us.
This article is excerpted from Deborah Ragsdale’s incoming president’s speech, delivered at the 65th Annual IAPD Convention in Louisville, KY, USA on August 18, 2021.
Incoming IAPD President
am thrilled to be here with you today. Becoming the president of IAPD is one of the greatest honors.
I would love to tell you little bit about myself and how my relationships have made me who I am today. I want to tell you all about what makes me, me, about my foundation, my lifelines and my outcomes.
I married the best man I ever met. His name was Lowell Wright. He was my best friend, my helpmate, the father to my children. Lowell had two beautiful children that I helped raise, Christy and Adam, and we had one child together, Kevin. We were self-employed in the restaurant business. After about 10 years of marriage, we met two little girls at church who were foster children. They had two sisters in another foster home and soon we became a weekend visiting resource so they could spend time together. During this time a relationship was born, one of love and caring, one that led to the adoption of all four children, and led to a forever home for all of us.


Swiss lighting manufacturer Regent Lighting developed the JOKER table luminaire with the goal of bringing a professional luminaire to market that provides pleasant lighting for those working from home — in close collaboration with Jungbecker, a company from Olpe, Germany, that specializes in plastic optics. Their material of choice for the optics is ACRYLITE®, the brand polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) from Röhm in the Americas.

Gears, machine parts, sprockets, star wheels, wear strips and more.
Gears, machine parts, sprockets, star wheels, wear strips and more.
urbell Plastics, Inc. made a small but important donation to a big project. There was just one challenge: the donation was for clear acrylic sheet during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jonathan Deitchman, then a Life Scout, needed to fulfill the Eagle Scout Service Project requirement to apply for Eagle Rank, the highest achievement in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). “This project signified that I learned to be a leader and worked well with other people, while also doing something to help the community in a fun and interesting way,” Deitchman explained. Interested in STEM, he approached the director of the A.J. Read Science Discovery Center at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oneonta to ask if his Eagle Scout Project could serve the center in some capacity, to which the answer was yes.
he International Association of Plastics Distribution (IAPD) was pleased to award the following companies of the annual Environmental Excellence Award during the 65th Annual IAPD Convention in Louisville, KY, USA in August: Curbell Plastics, Inc. received the gold award, Mitsubishi Chemical Advanced Materials received the silver award and Piedmont Plastics and Cope Plastics, Inc. tied for the bronze award. New this year is the Impact Award, which goes to a company or branch location that implemented a change that made a positive environmental impact. The first Impact Award went to Vycom for their TakeBack recycling program. The following companies were awarded honorable mentions: Cast Nylons Ltd, Polymer Industries, Polymershapes and Primex Plastics Corporation.
The awards celebrate the environmentally responsible practices of IAPD member companies, including recycling, conservation, community outreach, employee engagement and more. The award application assigns a point value to sustainability practices in each of these categories. Applicants also had the option to submit a short video showing their environmental initiatives to accrue additional points. Awards are determined based on a point system.
Any IAPD member company is eligible to apply for the IAPD Annual Environmental Excellence Awards. Applications are collected in the months prior to the convention.
In addition to the awards program, the IAPD GreenScene™ program honors all member companies that are engaging in environmentally friendly practices. IAPD GreenScene members are determined based on receiving at least 100 points on the GreenScene application.


- Plastic Trimming
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- Non-Ferrous Metal
It is used for production trimming of thermoformed, composite and fiberglass parts as well as being utilized for machine patterns and molds directly from CAD data. This robust system offers a variety of options and features to tackle a multitude of different applications.
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Stephen Frantz
Bryan Olin




D’Arcy
The market for North America engineering plastics is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 4 percent over the next five years, according to North America Engineering Plastics Market — Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact and Forecasts (2021-2026), a report by Research and Markets. The report indicates that the use of engineering plastics instead of traditional materials will be a major factor driving market growth, as will the use of plastics in green vehicles.
According to the report, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the most used of the engineering plastics. Due to its broad mechanical and electrical properties, PET is often used to replace metals in motor housings, switches, sensors and other electrical applications. PET and polyolefins are the most widely used materials in the plastic packaging industry. Some of the major properties of PET as a packaging material are recyclability, strength and versatility, which drive the demand for these products.




