On today’s Machinery Minutes podcast with PMM editor Ron Shinn, we round up these three essential stories in five minutes:

• John Erkert, CEO of PiovanGroup North America, has assumed the additional role of president of Conair Group.

• Japanese injection molding machinery makers Nissei and Toyo are merging, citing lessening demand and rising costs, tightening global competition, environmental concerns and a shortage of skilled labor.

• An interesting case study about implementing automation in a blow molding cell that manufactures large industrial drums.

This episode of the PMM Insight podcast focuses on advanced recycling, which uses heat, chemicals or a combination of both to turn waste plastic into reusable monomers. PMM editor Ron Shinn and senior staff reporter Karen Hanna discuss the technologies. You'll learn:

• Why is advanced recycling important to the circular economy?

• Who are some of the biggest players players in the industry?

• What is ahead for advanced recycling in North America, and what's holding it back?

This is what you will learn on today’s Machinery Minutes podcast with Ron Shinn, in which we round up three impactful stories from the past week:

• Can companies continue to make packaging profitably while heading off regulations that could put plastics on the chopping block?

• Russ LaBelle, the well-known founder of Wilmington Machinery, died at the age of 86. He developed specialized plastic machinery solutions that have since been adopted by companies around the world.

• Good news for injection molding machinery builders in third-quarter sales totals. Not so much for extrusion machinery manufacturers.

Here's what you'll learn on today’s Machinery Minutes podcast, in which PMM editor Ron Shinn rounds up three top stories from the past week:

• Are you familiar with PWDS, SFDR or WDLS? If you are in the blow molding business, you know they are acronyms for equipment to optimize thin bottle walls. But you might be surprised where this equipment came from.

• Tobias Baur is Arburg’s managing director of sales and after-sales, plus he is president of Euromap. Hear what he has to say about leadership, innovation and the future of plastics.

• Recyclers may be the biggest losers in the collapse of talks on an international plastics treaty.

On this episode of PMM Insight, a commentary by Editor Ron Shinn about hot topics heard on the show floor at K 2025:

• Competition – particularly from Asian machinery manufacturers – has caused Arburg to build a lower-cost molding machine.

• Artificial intelligence is coming, but machinery manufacturers are very divided on when it will get here.

• Aftermarket parts and service have become more important for machinery manufacturers’ bottom line.

What you will learn on today’s episode of PMM's Machinery Minutes podcast, in which we round up three top stories from the past week in five minutes:

• Injection molding equipment manufacturer Husky Technologies has been acquired by CompoSecure, a financial technology services firm. Husky will continue to operate under current management as a standalone company.

• The Plastics Industry Association announced the theme for NPE2027. It is “Next is Now.”

• The American Injection Molding Institute (AIM) has launched a plastics technology certificate training program that consists of 64 hours or instruction, available in person or online.

What you’ll hear on this episode of PMM’s Machinery Minutes podcast, in which we round up three top stories from the past week in five minutes:

• If 50 percent of plastics in the municipal solid waste stream were redirected from landfills to recycling facilities, the U.S. could add an estimated 173,200 jobs, $12.8 billion in annual payroll and $48.7 billion in annual economic output, according to a new study from the American Chemistry Council.

• Advanced recycling methods using heat and chemicals, chemical depolymerization and thermal processes such as pyrolysis are explained.

• Maguire Products has unveiled the fourth generation of its Ultra line of vacuum dryers.

What you will hear on today’s PMM Machinery Minutes podcast:

• A comprehensive story about the state of advanced recycling revealed some interesting developments.

• Creating a stand-up pouch that can be recycled seemed like an impossible task when a team from Effytec, LD Pack USA, Dukane Corp. and Hoffer Plastics first looked at the problem.
• Conair’s new PowerFill Pro is a compact, portable vacuum conveying system for processors who want the benefits of a central system without the infrastructure of long tubing runs or in-depth wiring and terminations.