Attention Molders: Time to Get Serious About Sustainability

If you’re not looking at ways to make your injection molding operation more sustainable, perhaps you’d better get started. Fortunately, Plastics Technology is here to help.

The Molding 2023 Conference, to be held Aug. 29-30, in Minneapolis, Minn., will feature numerous presentations that put sustainable injection molding in the spotlight. Speakers from the supply side — notably injection molding machine manufacturers, hot runner suppliers — along with OEMs and custom molders will, in Plastics Technology’s Tony Deligio’s words, “directly address technologies and business strategies that can help processors operate more sustainably, meeting self-imposed targets, customer requirements or both.” Tony is executive editor of Plastics Technology and technical program chairman of the Molding Conference.

Truth be told, if you dawdle on implementing ways to make your process more sustainable, you could see chunks of business moving to competitors that already have. Numerous OEMs and brand owners have already set 2025 as the year in which their suppliers must reach specified sustainability goals. As if that were not enough, governments are passing legislation that mandates sustainable actions to prompt businesses that fail to change behaviors voluntarily.

Specifically, the following presentations will headline sustainability, while many others will also touch on aspects of the topic:

• A Practical Road Map to No-Nonsense Recycling, Joachim Kragl, Engel
• Sustainability in Action at ADS and Infiltrator, Brian King, ADS
• Sustainability From Molding Machine to End Product, Samira Uharek, Arburg
• How Hot Runners Can Accelerate Your Green Approach, Mike Curran, Oerlikon HRSflow
• Driving Sustainable Manufacturing: The Crucial Role of Injection Molders and Mold Makers, Dave Hemink, Velosity
• Play the “PART” in Systems Thinking and Sustainability, Tory Flynn and Peter Smith, Hillenbrand/DME

Of course, topics covered at this annual event are not just limited to sustainability. You’ll have an opportunity to get up to speed on new developments in automation, lightweighting, 3D printing, metal injection molding, estimating molding, tonnage, process simulation material substitution and much more.

If you dawdle on implementing ways to make your process more sustainable, you good see chunks of business moving to competitors that already have.

What’s more, this year’s Molding Conference is co-located with MoldMaking Conference 2023, organized by Christina Fuges, editorial director of PT sister publication MoldMaking Technology. Fuges has put together a robust program of her own, focusing on best practices straight from the mouths of moldmakers themselves, and she’s tapped into a hot topic of her own: How to Successfully Reshore Tooling. Fittingly, this will be a collaborative talk, with insight provided from the moldmaker and molder, and also from Sloan Valve’s global sourcing manager.

If your plans allow you to get in a little early, you can participate in an all-afternoon, multifacility tour at Dynamic Group, Aug. 28, brought to you by the American Mold Builders Association (AMBA). You’ll have an opportunity to see how DGI has strategically built a footprint in mold manufacturing and plastics processing, leveraging its competitive advantage in both industries. The tour will end with a networking reception at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis.

I encourage you to go to moldingconference.com and make your plans.