CNNMoney.com has a story today about how small business owners are cutting their budgets to the bone in order to survive in a brutal economy.

Much of the story focuses on Bonnie Ina, the owner of a small plastics distribution business in the Cleveland area, who "has been transferring her own paychecks to her MasterCard to pay down business debt."

Ina says she has been waiting for two years for the economy to turn around.

"If I can't get a loan for the company, I'll have to file for bankruptcy," Ina told CNNMoney.com. "I can't afford payments and if I don't get help somewhere, my next step is welfare."

She says some customers have cancelled purchase orders. Some customers that used to pay their debts in 30 days now take twice as long.

Thanks to Scott Suttell, managing editor of our sister paper Crain's Cleveland Business, for discovering this story in his Editor's Choice blog today.

Earth911.com was among the news providers that sent representatives to the NPE2009 trade show. What did this recycling-focused Web site think of the plastics show? The site posted an item today titled "Sustainability a Focus of World's Largest Plastic Event."

("North America's largest plastic event" might have been a better title, or "One of the world's largest plastic events." But that's OK. Their point is that NPE is big, which is true.)

The report quotes SPI's Lynne Harris saying that NPE's Business of Plastics Conference featured sessions of interest to Earth911.com readers, including sustainability, energy efficiency, biopolymers and recycling.

It also quotes Sandra Keil, Earth911's vice president of government and industry affairs, who shared some thoughts about what she saw at the show:

Before attending NPE2009, I thought I understood plastics. I left with more questions than answers. After strolling the Expo Hall for two days, I spoke with those who make molds, machines, the actual plastic polymers, the preforms, plastic recyclers and even the company that makes a small plastic lining that is inserted into plastic bottles to keep the carbonation from escaping those sparkling beverages.

I used to believe that plastics were organized nicely into #1-7, but the catch is, there are now seven types of #2 plastic. What? My first thought was, 'how will that affect recycling?' What makes these seven plastic #2's different from one another? Can all seven types of #2 plastic be recycled together or will it create serious contamination?

On Thursday, I was fortunate to participate in a panel discussion headed by EPA that addressed ways to improve plastics recycling. The audience asked questions regarding the benefits of regulation, standardizing collection in the U.S. and following successful models of European countries.

All great thoughts and questions, yet plastics are evolving faster than we can set up programs for recycling. We benefit immeasurably with all the advancements in plastics, yet we are also deceiving ourselves that we can continue this habit of discarding this incredibly valuable material. My hope is that as plastics continue to advance, so will our commitment to plastic recycling.

Keil may have been surprised to learn that there are many types of No. 2 plastic (that's high density polyethylene, for readers who don't speak the language of recyclers). But that's not new -- recyclers have been dealing with different resin grades for decades.

Still, she seems to have a positive attitude about plastics. And her commitment to plastics recycling is a plus. I'm glad she had a chance to come to NPE and learn more about the industry.

Salon.com has an interesting feature today about museums struggling to preserve plastic art objects that are starting to fall apart as they age.

Early polymers including cellulose acetate, cellulose nitrate, PVC and polyurethanes are all featured, and curators are struggling with ways to keep important objects from flaking, discoloring, or simply falling apart.

As of today, most chemical damage to plastics is irreversible, and conservators focus less on rehabilitation than simple maintenance. The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum recently asked the Museum Conservation Institute to help preserve a high-altitude flight suit in its collection. The suit had belonged to the one-eyed aviation pioneer Wiley Post. The leather straps and cotton garments in Post's suit look fine, if a little dingy. But his plastic gloves look like the shriveled hand of a mummy. Conservation scientists said even light handling of the gloves would cause them to crack and crumble, and they admitted they can do little but put the suit in deep-freeze storage and take pictures for posterity.

One branch of the art industry that has taken a particular interest in the question of how to preserve plastics is insurers, since they will have to pick up the tab for damaged goods. Insurance agencies fund much of the research into preserving plastic art, a fledgling science aching for a breakthrough. One company, AXA Art Insurance, publishes a book with the dour title Plastic Art: A Precarious Success Story, and has held numerous training sessions to teach curators the best-known methods of staving off decay (and, it hopes, to generate new ideas on how to reverse it). In a warning to museums snapping up the work of some of today's hottest artists, the AXA book states that plastic-heavy pieces by Damien Hirst, Matthew Barney, and Jeff Koons will be "difficult, costly, and nerve-racking to preserve."

The story notes that in the future, museums may be reluctant to display or share plastic holdings, and curators worry about this generation of artists using biodegradable plastics that won't stand up to years of display.

It's interesting how museum curators are struggling to preserve plastics, while others -- concerned about issues like marine debris and litter -- are trying to deal with issues created by plastics' durability.

Polystar Packaging Inc., a Montreal-based film extruder that usually keeps a pretty low profile, made headlines last week when various newspapers reported that its owner, Hershey Friedman, plans to buy a meat packing plant in Iowa.

Friedman is buying Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville, Iowa, out of bankruptcy by paying part of the $21 million that Agriprocessors owes to its creditors.

According to a report in The Canadian Jewish News, the Agriprocessors plant was once the largest kosher meat supplier in the United States.

I've seen a few stories in the past week about a company in England that has a prototype of a washing machine that uses nylon pellets to clean clothes.

The company Xerox Ltd., says the "virtually waterless" technology saves up to 90 percent of the water used in a conventional machine, plus it cleans faster and uses less detergent.

According to the stories, the technology was developed by Professor Stephen Burkinshaw from the University of Leeds, who discovered that certain types of polymer beads could be used for cleaning. The pellets can be reused, and when they've reached the end of their useful life as cleaners, they can be recycled.

Xeros hopes to have the machines on the market by the end of next year. It's nice to see plastics playing a role in a new product that has such strong green credentials.

Andrew Winston, a nationally recognized expert on green business, says he heard the sound of "taps" being played for the plastic shopping bag last week.

Since so much of the plastics industry's efforts have gone into fighting legislative initiatives against plastic bags, it's interesting to note that Winston thinks that retailers' decisions to reduce bag use are just as significant.

Winston writes on The Huffington Post blog today about a meeting that he attended in Brazil with Wal-Mart Brazil and all of its suppliers. The meeting wasn't just about plastic bags -- it was a wide-ranging discussion of Wal-Mart's sustainability goals.

He notes that the company used the meeting to unveil a big national campaign, in cooperation with the Brazilian government, to drastically reduce plastic bag use. Wal-Mart's goal is to reduce bag use 50 percent by 2013. In Brazil, they are participating in an television ad campaign featuring a popular musician with the slogan "Saco E um Saco," which translates as either "A bag is a pain in the butt" or "A bag sucks."

"Either way, it's a funny, yet aggressive way to get people to stop using these things," Winston notes. "All companies should take note of this kind of coordinated effort by governments and other companies -- imagine what happens if your product, manufacturing process, or sourcing strategy ends up on the societal bad list."

As I've noted before, plastic bags won't be the only product facing this kind of pressure -- and Winston (who spoke last year at our Sustain '08 plastics business summit) agrees:

"Bags are not the only products facing this kind of challenge -- it's happening to bottled water as well. But nothing compares to the coordinated global attack on plastic bags. Once your product is declared a pain in the butt, where do you go from there?"

In the spirit of my post last week on my daughter working at NPE2009, Christy (Petrakis) Domanoski sent me another great picture related to family and NPE.

This is a photo of Christy, her father (Steve Petrakis) and her grandfather (Myron Petrakis) at the show last week. All three have spent their entire careers in plastics (Christy notes, "OK, so maybe mine hasn't been as long yet...").

The Petrakis clan is pretty well known in plastics circles, but here's some resume information for those of you who aren't already familiar:

Myron Petrakis

Myron got his degree after serving in the navy in WWII from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He got one of the first plastics engineering degrees.

In 1951 he started on the shop floor with molder General American.

In the late 50s/early 60s he went to a company called Federal Tool in Skokie, Ill., and worked his way up to molding supervisor.

In the mid 1960s he left there and became one of the first direct salesmen for AEC Inc.

In the late 1960s he started his own manufacturers rep organization in Chicago called BP Plastics and retired from there in the early 1990s.

He currently serves as the police commissioner of Norridge, Ill., a post he has held for 50 years.

Steve Petrakis

Steve got his degree from Western Michigan in food distribution and soon thereafter went into plastics as a sales rep for his father's agency, BP Plastics in 1976.

He then was at EMI Corp. (Jackson Center, Ohio) from 1978-1989, working his way up to national sales manager.

In 1989 he started his own rep agency, Innovative Plastics Systems, which he had until 1991.

From 1991-2005 Steve held various positions at ACS Group involving sales and marketing, concluding his time there as VP of sales & marketing for Sterling, steam control division, ACS automation, ACS recycling division and industrial markets.

He then solidified his career long support of the SPI by joining them from 2005-2006 as their director of the Midwest and Northeast.

Currently he serves as President of Frigel North America and serves on many SPI committees, including the NPE Marketing Committee.

Christy (Petrakis) Domanoski

Christy got her start in plastics one summer when she was a Parts & Service intern at AEC.

Upon graduation from UW-Whitewater (and later masters from Roosevelt University, Chicago) she worked in the marketing department for ACS Group from 2002-2006.

Currently she is with a Milwaukee-based marketing communications firm, Scheibel Halaska, where she works with plastics companies such as Frigel, among others.

Thanks for sharing that photo, Christy. I encourage other blog readers to send their photos from the show ... perhaps we can put together a photo gallery.

Some things are better seen than read. That's why Plastics News is using video to help tell some of the more compelling personal and corporate tales of growth, change and new technology emerging from the show floor at NPE2009 in Chicago.

In addition to producing its traditional print show dailies, PN is posting a series of 16 news videos during the June 22-26 show. Videographer Steve Raddock caught up with most of this year's Hall of Fame inductees at the reception just prior to their induction banquet Monday, and has supplemented those brief interviews with clips about cool new technology, about the IDSA/Plastics News Design Award winner, and about someone who is putting together a television documentary about the plastics industry, among other topics.

You can view all the clips at www.plasticsnews.com/npe, which also features more than 100 news stories so far from the show (with many more to come).

See the girl -- or, rather, young lady, at the bottom of this entry? Allow me to get personal for a minute, and I'll explain why her photo is in the blog.

Back when I started at Plastics News in 1991, I had two young daughters and my wife was pregnant with a third. We had a busy year -- new job, a move to Ohio, and then my first NPE show in Chicago.

PN did show dailies, of course. It was a fun, but busy, week.

Plastics News was just two years old. I think that show -- and those dailies -- helped cement our role as an industry leader. A lot of the people on our team back at NPE '91 are still playing key roles at NPE2009 -- Tony Eagan, Bob Grace, Linda Whelan, Ron Shinn, Bill Bregar, Lisa Sarkis, Jeannie Reall, Mike Lauzon, and our cartoonist Rich Williams.

Not to mention Joe Wilssens, the professional photographer who has been shooting NPE shows for us since '91.

Those of you who come to NPE know that PN has energetic young men and women pass out our issues at the show. Three years ago my two older daughters were part of the team. They loved it.

This year my youngest daughter is on the distribution team, with two of her friends from Ohio, and lots of other terrific kids. You see them everywhere, dressed in tie-dyed T-shirts, passing out our dailies.

The young lady in the photo? That's my daughter -- the one who wasn't even born yet when I started at PN in 1991. And now here she is working at the 2009 show.

Time flies.

The Wall Street Journal has a story today about how the latest delay in the commercialization of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner "highlights the engineering, manufacturing and maintenance issues" associated with carbon-fiber-reinforced composite parts.

"Boeing's stumble is striking because in the past, concerns with high-tech composites generally have focused on the manufacturing challenges of turning out ever-larger composite parts with extremely tight tolerances," according to the report.

This time, maintenance issues are key, because structural experts are having trouble predicting how composite parts will wear.

As the transportation industry considers ways to reduce weight and improve fuel economy, these challenges are going to become pretty commonplace. Engineers and designers won't be able to throw more steel at a structural problem to make a part work -- not with ambitious fuel economy standards and the drive to reduce the sector's carbon footprint.

It's probably a good time for young people to consider careers in mechanical engineering and industrial design.