The Real World

It’s not what you see at trade shows, all spit-shined and surrounded by acres of fresh carpet. You won’t find it in the glowing claims made in brochures and press releases. The real world of plastics processing is inside your shops, where all the products and techniques that we editors write about are put to the test. That’s why almost all of our feature articles, and many of our smaller news items, quote actual users on their experiences and recommendations. That’s why many of our stories are entirely about technology developments hatched not at big machinery and materials producers but under the roofs of molders, extruders, and other processing readers. Every month, in fact, we feature a processor in our “Strategies” department on the last page of the issue.

In the past, we have reported a number of stories from processors in our news section (Close-Up on Technology). To better distinguish stories on what our readers are doing from stories about machinery and material suppliers, we have created a new department, called “Real World".

This department will be devoted not to walk-through plant tours, but to examining home-grown innovation, clever problem-solving, and—as is the case this month—the experiences of “early adopters” of brand-new technologies that we have covered in our news sections. Giving these stories their own department calls more attention to the essential role processors play in moving plastics technology forward.

Of course, if you have a story for this section, please get in touch. E-mail me at mnaitove@ptonline.com.