PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2018

imprint EDITORIAL PUBLISHER Alexander Büchler, Managing Director HEAD OFFICE heidelberg business media GmbH Bunsenstr. 14 69115 Heidelberg, Germany phone: +49 6221-65108-0 fax: +49 6221-65108-28 [email protected] EDITORIAL Kay Barton Heike Fischer Gabriele Kosmehl Michael Maruschke Ruari McCallion Waldemar Schmitke Anthony Withers WikiPETia.info [email protected] MEDIA CONSULTANTS Martina Hirschmann [email protected] Johann Lange-Brock [email protected] phone: +49 6221-65108-0 fax: +49 6221-65108-28 LAYOUT AND PREPRESS EXPRIM Werbeagentur | exprim.de Matthias Gaumann READER SERVICES Till Kretner [email protected] PRINT Chroma Druck & Verlag GmbH Werkstr. 25 67354 Römerberg Germany WWW www.hbmedia.net | w ww.petpla.net PETplanet Insider ISSN 1438-9459 is published 10 times a year. This publication is sent to qualified subscribers (1-year subscription 149 EUR, 2-year subscription 289 EUR, Young professionals’ sub- scription 99 EUR. Magazines will be dispatched to you by airmail). Not to be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. Note: The fact that product names may not be identified as trademarks is not an indication that such names are not registered trademarks. 3 PET planet Insider Vol. 19 No. 05/18 www.petpla.net An Editour usually begins with a market overview interspersed with figures and background information, followed by a thoughtful look into the future. This time, by contrast, I found myself sitting in front of a blank screen because I had no idea what I should be writing about. The tour has been going on for some weeks now, the NPE show is almost upon us and we still do not have a clear picture of what is happening in the US drinks’ industry. At our editorial meeting, we joked about how to fill the required number of pages. Some not too serious suggestions ranged from “simply leaving them blank” to “colouring pictures”. Nevertheless, what follows are a few pages that serve as an introduction to the USA (see page 22) which I hope you will find interesting, even if what I have written is different from my usual style. My writer’s block was due to my inability to work out just what is going on in the USA at the moment, with increasingly critical voices being raised against plastics, accompanied by fanciful PET recycling quotas, punitive tariffs on packaging material and components, water shortages and contaminated drinking water in many parts of America. I outlined the reasons why any meaningful assessment of what might happen in the future is impossible at the moment. We will continue to collect figures and views during our tour and hopefully will be able to make a more informed prognosis in the summer. By then, we will have a better idea of what is happening in terms of punitive tariffs. At the NPE in Orlando in May, the Editourmobil and Bottle Zone will put us right at the heart of the North American plastics world, which will be hit just as hard by tariffs as the drinks’ industry. Here in our beer garden in the South Hall, drinking organic handcrafted beer from www.orlandobrewing.com, we can philosophise about the rights and wrongs of this world. As regards the quality of the beer, however, our visit to the brewery was very positive. Yours Alexander Büchler Dear friends of PETplanet Insider,