1990 - April 1993
- Published: September 20, 2002, By PFFC Staff
1920s and 1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970 - 1973
1974 - 1976
1977 - 1979
1980s
May 1993 - 1994
1995 - 1999
2000 to present
The Early 90s...
After years of Republican leadership, Americans usher in a new era with President Bill Clinton. The decade would be a prosperous time filled with new legislature and fresh political faces, however the era would be forever scarred with scandals featuring bloody gloves and a stained dress.
The first shocks of terroism hit home for Americans as the World Trade Center and the Federal Building in Oklahoma are viciously attacked. On the other side of the world, black South Africans finally find their voice as African National Congress’ Nelson Mandela becomes leader of the nation. Popular culture goes grunge and Hip-Hop as the anti-pop movement goes mainstream. The world loses three very different leading ladies: Princess Diana, Mother Teresa, and Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
As the decade comes to a close, combatting violence in schools and the workplace takes center stage. And everyone anxiously awaits the new millennium and the antipated catastrophes of the Y2K bug.
January 1990
Production manager Anita (Grbic) Sljivar joins the staff.
Officials say the AIDS epidemic is spreading at an alarming rate throughout all societal factions in America.
Operation Desert Shield sends 527,000 American military personnel to Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf after Iraq invades Kuwait.
March 1990
This year marks the initial editions of two regional exhibitions in the Converting Machinery/Materials program of events: CMM East and CMM West. The shows are scheduled for Philadelphia in April and Los Angeles in May.
Fibre Box Assn. develops a new symbol to inform end users that corrugated packaging materials are readily recyclable.
April 1990
Norman H. Abrams, a management consultant, author, educator, and packaging industry expert, dies March 7.
Electronic prepress is a concept recently introduced to the vocabulary of converters. Experts estimate that it will become a reality in many converting operations in the near future.
“Green Packaging” is a revolution that promises to shake the foundations of traditional package development. Environmental concerns cause changes in production practices, buying habits, and consumer inquiry.
May 1990
A new in-fed nip drive improves primary web tension control, while a forward-reverse, take-up-roll drive permits winding of adhesive tapes.
Calling it a “recycling breakthrough,” a Chicago-based converter announces plans to make grocery sacks from newspapers.
Shorter press runs and just-in-time delivery are among the demands facing the converters producing products for the flexible-packaging and folding carton industries. Narrow web gravure presses are entering the scene to deal with some of the problems facing these converters.
Packaging Un-Limited creates a collapsible cooler. The cooler is specially designed scores and slots allow the cooler to be flattened and put back together. It comes complete with a storage sleeve for convenience.
June 1990
EIT’s Film Area Computer (FAC) is designed to measure the amount of ink coverage required in the tinting process and eliminated guesswork in ink estimation.
Different converting operations demand different systems to control volatile-organic-compound emissions. Converters need to find the most efficient and cost-effective method for their facilities while complying with federal, state and local air-pollution regulations.
July 1990
Jerry Osman, president and owner of Go Tape & Label died May 26. He started Go Tape & Label with one 4-in. press in a small storefront, and the firm is now one of the top label converters in the southern U.S.
August 1990
A resealable package for disposing of used cooking oil and grease opens a new market. The pouch holds 16 oz. of discarded oil and grease and rests flat on its 3 in. bottom.
Migrating inks are the basis for a new printing process by Temtec, Spring Valley, NY, that is used to produce time-dependent badges, labels, and tickets. The inks are inactive until a clear self-adhesive film is placed on top, which actives the migrating ink dots, and they enlarge.
September 1990
Two pressure-sensitive tapes designed for medical applications involving the human body are introduced to secure surgical drapes to patients.
December 1990
A technology that uses mixed-plastics household waste to produce hollow-plastics profiles and similar extruded products is in use at an Austrian firm.
1991
Less than 48 hours after Iraq ignores a U.N. deadline for withdrawing troops form Kuwait, President Bush announces that the US and coalition forces have attacked Baghdad. The high-tech Operation Desert Storm, dubbed the Persian Gulf War, ended 41 days later with an announcement that Kuwait had been liberated. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein remains in power.
The full Senate confirmed Clarence Thomas to replace retiring justice Thurgood Marshall on the supreme court, despite claims of sexual harassment by university law professor Anita Hill.
Magic Johnson announced his retirement from the NBA after testing positive for HIV.
Children’s author Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Geisel dies at age 87.
September 1991
Bob Zuck, who joined the staff as features editor in January 1986, is named editor.
1992
Riots, looting, and burning broke out in Los Angeles after the acquittal of four police officers in the beating of Rodney King. King appealed to black and whites, “Can’t we all just get along?”
Macro Engineering & Technology reports it built the first commercial single-layer biaxially oriented PVDC film for use in food packaging.
Johnny Carson retires after 30 years of the Tonight Show.
February 1992
Paper, Film, and Foil Converter presents an encouraging article on the country’s economic recession entitled “Cautious Optimism Cushions Overall Economic Pessimism.”
Kataoka offers first computer integrated manufacturing system (CIMS)—promoted as “the ticket for your survival in the new film industry.”
March 1992
The fourth Converflex is held in Milan, Italy, March 25 to 29.
For converters, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 keeps management cautious of acts of sexual harassment and discrimination against women and the disabled. In April, Paper, Film, and Foil Converter reports estimates indicate more than one-fourth of the US workforce will be protected as disabled under the American with Disabilities Act.
April 1992
The FPA reports the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is suspending temporally total enclosure tests to measure the capture efficiency of VOCs until July 1993.
May 1992
Snaxpo ‘92 exhibition and conference is held in San Francisio, CA.
June 1992
The process of food irradiation becomes increasingly more accepted in the US after the first US food-irradiation facility is opened in Plant City, FL.
July 1992
Paper, Film and Foil Converter features a two-part article on the use of UV flexographic inks by converters in “Are Ultraviolet Inks Wave of the Future?
August 1992
Airco Gases announces and demonstrates its new breakthrough in blown-film production at the 30th anniversary open house at Battenfeld Gloucester Engineering Co. Inc. The new development increases the linear production rate of a blown-film line by providing enhanced heat removal without compromising bubble integrity or film quality. The technology uses nitrogen to cool the bubble during the extruding process.
September 1992
Labelexpo USA ‘92 is held at the Rosemont O’Hare Exposition Ctr. Sept. 22 to 24.
In Gade v. National Solid Waste Management Assn., the court held the Occupational Safety and Health Act preempts state occupational safety and health legislation even if the state statute’s purpose is both public safety and worker safety.
Covertex ‘92 is held in Birmingham, England, Sept. 22 to 24.
November 1992
Pack Expo is held in Chicago November 8-12.
Paper, Film, and Foil Converter reports significant technological advances are expected to propel the advanced electronic-packaging industry well into the 21st century. “The growing demand for higher performance, faster signal transmission, decreased energy usage and smaller systems are helping to facilitate the breakdown of these barriers," says PFFC
The 12th edition of K, the international trade fair for plastics and rubber is held in Düsseldorf, Germany.
December 1992
Paper, Film, and Foil Converter and The Packaging Group sponsor the first ConverPack ’92, a three-day conference for converters. The conference was held at the Stouffer Riviere Hotel in Chicago, December 7 to 9.
1993
In the first major act of terrorism in the continental US, a bomb explosion at New York’s World Trade Ctr. kills five and injures 290.
Branch Dividian cult members in Waco, Texas kill four officers attempting to arrest leader David Koresch. The standoff continues for several months until federal officers attack the cult’s fortified compound. The resulting fire killed Koresch and 80 followers and their children.
Withdrawal began of GIs, Marines and Navy SEALs that had been sent to Somalia for Operation Restore Hope. Twelve Americans died in the operation, which began shortly before Christmas 1992.
January 1993
A recent industry survey shows few mid-sized manufacturers in the US are planning on ISO 9000 certification this year.
Paper, Film, and Foil Converter reports the use of lighter material for core shafts has been surfacing in the industry in the past few years.
Pack Expo ‘92 reports record-breaking attendance, more than 65,000 converters and packagers attending. The surge in attendance is credited to the improving US economy.
Reynolds Metals Co., Richmond VA, is a recipient of the 1992 Virginia Governor’s Environmental Excellence award in pollution control. The company is recognized for developing the waterborne technology for its Bellwod, VA, plant, which the firm bills as "the world’s largest gravure-printing plant." The development is said to reduce air emission of VOCs, a by-product of solvent-borne materials.
February 1993
According to an industry forecast, sales of rooms, components, and supplies to the clean-room industry are expected to exceed $4billion worldwide in 1993.
Ken Holliday, president of Southeastern Die Co., Decatur, GA is named the Diecutter/Diemaker of the Year by the Intl. Assn. of Diemaking and Diecutting.
Box Expo is held February 16 thru 19 at the Rosemont-O’Hare Exposition Center, Rosemont, IL. Conferences covering a range of folding-carton and corrugated converting industry information were discussed.
Paper, Film, and Foil Converter reports, “Although maintaining a cautious stance, many converters, their suppliers, and economic experts report their businesses seem to be headed on a positive economic path. Consumer demand, legislative regulations and developing technologies are spurring expansion in the US and abroad.”
Paper, Film, and Foil Converter reports that a new corporate philosophy encouraging participative management, education, greater worker initiative, and stock ownership has changed the way a converter’s employees view their jobs. They take more pride in their work and seek ways to improve quality, cut costs, and save time.
Contributing editor Stan Sacharow reports that a strong devotion to science and the need to export worldwide created a rather unusual converting and packaging industry in Israel. Packaging firms in Israel constantly seek new markets and products worldwide to provide values added and unusual concepts.
According to business experts, Japan’s recession is affecting its plastic-resins industry significantly.
According to the State of the Industry Report conducted by the Flexible Packaging Assn. (FPA), even though flexible packaging product shipments fell by 2.7% in 1991, converters’ production levels were up. The report also confirms the value of flexible packaging product shipments for 1991 at $12.3 billion. During the same period, gross domestic product declines 1.2%.
March 1993
Cor-Box Inc. is honored with the Mona award for corrugated packaging and innovation by Bobst Group Inc. The Mona recognizes industry leaders that further technological growth.
Paper, Film, and Foil Converter reports computers are becoming an integral part of manufacturing, including in many converting operations. Software specific to the industry is becoming easier to find, and many software companies will customize their standard accounting and manufacturing programs to fit requirements.
Pouches and film overwraps with post-consumer recycled materials are represented heavily among the winners of the Flexible Packaging Assn.’s 1992 FPA Packaging Awards. One of the big winners is American National Can, whose Pringles’ pouch was believed to the first use of vacuum technology for a potato chips.
In “Material Update,” PFFC reports, since their introduction as a security device in the 1980s, holograms are gaining popularity with consumers. Developments in hologram technology make this process affordable for a variety of converting uses ranging from gift-wrap to packaging to narrow-web labels.
Contributing editor Stanley Sacharow reports South America is an untapped market for packaging, stating: “South America represents an important market for US machinery exporters with the US selling more than $450 million annually in food-processing and packaging-related machinery to South America.”
April 1993
Indigo introduces the first digital printer at Ipex.
New waste-disposal regulation in Germany requires nearly two-thirds of all plastics used to be recycled.
Production, sales, and captive use of plastics resins were up in November 1992 over the same month in 1991, but showed a decrease from October 1992, according to the Society of the Plastics Industry committee on resin statistics.
A king-sized metallized label was named Package of the Year in the 1993 edition of AIMCAL’s Metallized Packaging and Label Competition. The competition is open to packages and labels containing a metallized substrate and currently in commercial use. Other winners included a potato chip bag, a microwave susceptor used with a sandwich bag, a paperboard-boxing system using metallized materials to provide dependable insulation, a cigarette package, packaging for a series of children’s vitamins, a motor-oil label, and labeling for a line of toiletries.
The 1993 winners of the Fourth World Label Assn. Award Competition includes 15 converters who won top honors in the 1992 awards contests held by their respective trade associations. The international competition honors technological advances in the narrow-web field. Winners include Simpson Label Co., for Flexograpy line and tone; Impresstik for Rotary-letterpress line work; and Japan’s Fukuoka Seal Co. for screen printing line work.
