Plastics trade groups square off in competition.

The American Plastics Council announced in April that it will become a "full service" resin manufacturers' trade association, adding activities in FDA applications, transportation, and government relations to its historic role of public relations, advertising, and political advocacy. This ends over a year of on-and-off discussions on combining the APC with the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) as a single trade group. Rather, it appears that APC is headed on a course to compete more directly with SPI's traditional activities. The APC move also raises the level of competition between the two organizations for resin-company support.

Governance of a combined group was the problem. "The APC wanted 50% control - period," an SPI spokesperson says. "The crux of the problem is whether that balance of representation is fair to processors and machinery suppliers." SPI's 2000 members include 140 resin companies and over 1000 processors. The remainder are machinery and equipment manufacturers, suppliers of additives and other materials, and associates and individual members.

The APC was formed in 1992 as a temporary group to counter antiplastic environmental and recycling legislation and to promote a positive public image of plastics. Its activities have cost resin companies over a quarter billion dollars. The APC proposed a plan known as "Twin Towers Plus" that envisioned two trade associations, one for resin companies, and one for everybody else, with SPI's existing programs in a third entity available to both groups.

The APC's 25 members include 19 that are also SPI members and six that quit SPI in recent months: Exxon, Solvay, Amoco, Chevron, Nova, and Equistar. (A new APC member is Sasol Chemical Ltd., a South African monomer producer with U.S. offices in Houston.) APC is now targeting six other SPI members that it wants to recruit: Fina, Phillips, and the four biggest PVC producers, says APC president Ron Yokum.

Resin-company defections will affect SPI's budget for the fiscal year starting June 1, not so much for basic dues as for support of special-interest groups like the Plastic Pipe Institute and Polystyrene Packaging Council, both of which left SPI this year. Resin companies supply about a third of SPI's core budget and 45% of its total budget, including special-interest groups, SPI says.

SPI's response to the resin-producer defections has been stepped up recruitment of new members. "We already represent 90% of machinery and equipment makers," an SPI spokesperson notes, "so the greatest opportunity is among processors." In recent months SPI added close to 20 large processors, including Tupperware, Nypro, and Rubbermaid. But most processors who are not SPI members are smaller, so their dues contribution would be less.