IMFA's
"Eleventh International Molded Fibre Products Seminar" was
held in February 2008 in Cape Canaveral Florida USA with warm sunny
weather and attendees from eight countries.
As
with previous seminars, not only were the speakers well received, but
the atmosphere was charged with talk of our industrys activities
and friendly conversation.
Our keynote speaker,
was Amy Zettlemoyer Lazar, Director of Packaging for Walmarts Sams
Club and co-chair of Walmarts Sustainable Value Network
(SVN). Amy detailed the needs for product manufacturing information and
the vendor scorecard program. We also had the opportunity to meet her new,
months old, family member: William, our youngest attendee.
Don Kennedy of KMI gave
a talk on some hands-on details of molding machine manufacturing,
and Patrick Frontale of PCI NY, addressed some concerns of food contact
of molded fibre products and FDA certification conditions.
Victor Bell shared his
vast knowledge with a zestful presentation of
worldwide environmental initiatives and new requirements for use of
words such as sustainability, and updated us on definitions.
Speaking on electronic
product packaging were veteran packaging
engineers, Leslie Lindsay of Dell Inc. and Kevin Howard of Packnomics explaining
his work at Hewlett Packard on a molded fibre packaging project. Peter Weston,
of LaCasse & Weston enlightened molded fibre product manufacturers with
some of the finer aspects and costly energy concerns in drying molded fibre
products.
With the growing interest
in the use of alternative fibres, Mark Lewis of the University of Washington
presented a case study using wheat straw and John Hunt of the US Forest
Products Laboratory revealed a unique process of fibre-finger-printing
to predict performance of molded fibre products manufactured with different
raw materials. Laura Schmitt of Nalco Chemicals discussed pulp treatments
using various chemicals aiding manufacturing and product performance.