Lubrizol Contributes To Nike’s Efforts To Make Full-Face Shields For Frontline Medical Workers

CLEVELAND — April 20, 2020 — Lubrizol together with NIKE Inc. is helping protect frontline medical workers fighting against COVID-19. To support Nike’s efforts to develop and donate full-face shields and powered, air-purifying respirator (PAPR) lenses to hospitals across several U.S. cities, Lubrizol donated ESTANE® thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) polymers, an important element in both pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Nike’s version of the full-face shield transforms elements of the brand’s footwear and apparel, including TPU. Lubrizol’s innovation team quickly evaluated materials, provided insights to optimize performance and re-orchestrated its production and supply chain to produce and donate the necessary material to Nike as part of this effort.

In addition to the full-face shields, the ESTANE TPU donation will be used in lenses for powered, air-purifying respirator (PAPR) helmets, used in situations where medical professionals face the greatest airborne pathogen exposure as they provide critical care to infected patients.

With Lubrizol’s support, Nike has shipped full-face shields and PAPR lenses to health systems in Oregon, where Nike is headquartered, and several other U.S. cities, including Cleveland, where Lubrizol’s world headquarters sit.

“We are grateful for the generosity of companies around the country as we build up our supply levels in anticipation of a surge in COVID-19 patients,” said Lara Kalafatis, chair of Cleveland Clinic’s Philanthropy Institute. “This collaboration between Lubrizol and Nike demonstrates ingenuity applied alongside compassion and a sincere interest to help thousands of our caregivers.”

“These face shields will allow us to treat patients while keeping our front-line medical providers safe,” said MetroHealth President and CEO Dr. Akram Boutros, FACHE. “We appreciate this generous donation. It’s another example of the community coming together to care for each other.”

Lubrizol’s TPU is an incredibly versatile polymer that bridges the gap between flexible rubber and rigid plastics, which allows partners to apply TPU across a wide range of applications. In addition to full-face shields, Lubrizol’s TPU is being used in medical gowns, medical equipment, hospital mattresses, tubing, hoses, and medical devices for many other critical applications.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with Nike to improve lives and support those in need during COVID-19,” says Rick Tolin, president, Lubrizol Advanced Materials. “Every day our employees enable products used across the world, and our team is fully committed to enabling our science and applications expertise to deliver even greater impact during this global crisis.”

Earlier this month, Lubrizol announced a $2 million donation commitment to support COVID-19 needs globally. The company has contributed critical supplies to hospitals across the world, donated to Food Banks where Lubrizol has major operations and supported local restaurants by purchasing meals for hospital workers, among other efforts. The company has also challenged its employees to contribute 2,020 virtual or at-home volunteer hours to assist organizations providing support in this environment.

Posted April 20, 2020

Source: The Lubrizol Corp.

Johns Manville Starts Production Of Nonwoven Media For Face Masks

DENVER — April 20, 2020 — The Johns Manville (JM) plant in Richland, Miss., started production this month to make nonwoven filtration media that will be used to create needed face masks to help stop the spread of COVID-19.

“Johns Manville is in a unique position to serve a market that is fulfilling a great need across the world,” said Mary Rhinehart, president and CEO of Johns Manville. “We are proud of our teams in Richland and throughout JM for finding new ways to support the communities and people who are on the front lines of this global crisis.”

Most nonwoven production of face masks was abandoned in the U.S. many years ago and moved to Asia. Given the shortage of face masks in the U.S. and Europe, JM’s Engineered Products business decided to build on its existing capabilities and help fill the market demand.

“Our high-performance nonwoven material is designed to provide high levels of filtration for various types of face masks,” said John Vasuta, president of JM’s Engineered Products business.

JM media meets or exceeds Level 1 BFE 95% (Bacterial Filtration Efficiency) and VFE (Viral Filtration Efficiency) requirements. These results were verified by an FDA-registered national laboratory.

The JM plant in Richland employs about 50 people and produces a variety of filtration products for various air and liquid applications using polypropylene and polyester meltblown technology. Richland’s meltblown filtration media can be found in numerous industrial, automotive, consumer products and FDA-approved food and healthcare applications.

Posted April 20, 2020

Source: Johns Manville, a Berkshire Hathaway company

Swift Brands Launches the Swift Million Challenge

LOS ANGELES — April 20, 2020 — Swift Brands announced that it has launched the Swift Million Challenge. Chelsea Grayson, Swift Brand’s CEO, said: “The purpose of the challenge is to get as many Americans as possible to wear a mask and help flatten the COVID-19 curve. With help from our wonderful customers, we are challenging ourselves to donate one million masks wherever the needs presents.” For every mask purchased by a customer, Swift Brands will donate a mask to the hospital, senior center or other place in need designated by the customer.

Swift Brands’ on-demand factory manufactures all of its products in the USA and is uniquely poised to rapidly produce protective gear in the battle against the spread of COVID-19. While the masks are not N95 certified, they are made with antimicrobial material. They can be worn alone, or they can provide an added layer of defense when layered over a certified mask. They can be ordered in any color and can include a corporate logo or graphic (using water-based inks). Swift Brands is happy to provide this offering to customers with no minimums, for their own use or for purposes of donating to the front lines.

“Swift Brands thanks our customers for joining us in the Swift Million Challenge and for helping us to answer this important call to action,” Grayson said. “And, of course, we wouldn’t be able to do any of this important work without the help of our dedicated employees and their tireless efforts to help us do our part to flatten the curve. We strongly believe that covering your face is like casting a vote for the end of the pandemic.”

Posted April 20, 2020

Source: Swift Brands

The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) Statement On Administration’s 90-Day Tariff Deferral

WASHINGTON — April 20, 2020 — The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), representing the full spectrum of U.S. textiles from fiber through finished products, issued a statement from NCTO President and CEO Kim Glas today, voicing concern over the administration’s executive order instituting a non-reciprocal 90-day deferral on certain tariffs. The temporary postponement of duties does not apply to products with antidumping or countervailing duties or those products subject to penalty duties under Section 232, 201 and 301. As further details of the order emerge, NCTO is closely reviewing the implications for the U.S. textile industry.

“At a time when domestic textile producers and its workforce have mobilized to transform their production lines to manufacture the personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies for frontline healthcare and medical workers fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, the administration’s decision to defer duties for 90 days on the vast majority of products imported into the United States is counterproductive,” Glas said.

“This move contradicts the administration’s top stated priority of rebuilding American manufacturing and buying American and could have severe negative implications for the entire U.S. textile industry, whose companies and workforce already are facing enormous economic hardship.

We support the need to temporarily eliminate barriers to the entry of emergency medical supplies and certain PPE inputs tied directly to the COVID-19 response. But make no mistake, the key drivers behind efforts to defer tariffs have nothing to do with facilitating access to PPE products or stopping the spread of COVID-19.

Our industry is being asked to do extraordinary things. We are heeding that call, but we need help to ensure the supply chains we are creating overnight don’t evaporate tomorrow. We need strong procurement policies and additional funding for our industries to ramp up and retool — not further measures that incentivize offshore production. We need to maximize the U.S. domestic production chain right now to every extent possible in helping fight COVID-19 and make the products American frontline workers desperately need.

We need to provide immediate and substantial relief to our manufacturing sector and their workforce who are suffering enormously right now. It’s critical that we have a long-term U.S. government plan to ensure that we aren’t relying on offshore producers to make medically necessary, live-saving PPE. We shouldn’t be providing handouts to reward the very companies that helped offshore these industries so many years ago.

Tariffs are one of the few mechanisms in place to help partially address the challenges U.S. manufacturers face in competing with imports from countries with exceptionally low wages, poor working conditions, and minimal environmental and safety standards.”

Posted April 20, 2020

Source: The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO)

TRSA Launches Weekly Webinars On COVID-19 Response

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — April 20, 2020 — TRSA apprised its members on the association’s latest responses to the COVID-19 crisis during an all-purpose webinar series launched on April 16. The webinars, dubbed the TRSA Weekly Industry Update, offered nearly 80 online attendees an overview of activities that the association is pursuing. Among these were legislative advocacy, survey research and a professional networking/information-sharing initiative aimed at helping companies recover from the worst economic downturn since the 1930s.

The 30-minute webinar included an update from TRSA’s Director of Membership and Outreach Ken Koepper on the recently launched Market-Specific Business Resilience Task Forces, a program that aims to develop industrywide solutions to challenges that face linen and uniform services as customers gradually resume full operations and reassess their short- and long-term needs for reusable textiles.

“These four task forces are the front line of the effort to move the industry forward as the crisis subsides,” Koepper said, noting they cover customers and prospects across the economy, with one each dedicated to F&B (food and beverage), Healthcare, Hospitality and Industrial. Initial discussions, to be conducted the week of May 4, will examine threats and opportunities and set recovery objectives and propose tactics to achieve them. Visit https://www.trsa.org/resources/covid-19-guidance/covid-19-task-force-sign/ for more information or to sign up for one or more of the task groups.

The “Financial Relief” and “Business Strategies” area of the TRSA Coronavirus Resource Center on the TRSA website provides strategic insights for recovery efforts. Examples include a brief on key business recovery steps from consultant McKinsey & Co. Other resources include sector-specific articles from the e-news Textile Services Weekly and the print Textile Services magazine. For additional details on the Task Force, contact Koepper at kkoepper@trsa.org.

Kevin Schwalb, TRSA’s vice president of government relations gave an update on the three key pieces of legislation recently approved by Congress to aid businesses, including linen, uniform and facility services companies, through loans and grants designed to help them survive until the COVID-19 crisis subsides. Under the CARES Act, the $350 billion set aside for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) received enormous interest from small businesses nationwide, resulting in the fund being depleted within days of its April 3 opening. “However, Congress is in the process of adding more appropriations to the fund, so we’re hoping to see more money get involved as well as some other tweaks,” said Schwalb, adding that TRSA is working to gain an exemption from the 500-employee limit that would allow more commercial laundries to access the funds provided through the legislation. Larger companies also can access $450 billion in a Treasury Department loan program. Information on various programs is available on the Coronavirus Resource Center section of TRSA’s website.

TRSA advocates are also working to address the recent shortage of hospital surgical PPE by encouraging the expanded use of reusable barrier gowns and similar protective items that are less prone to shortages because they can be manufactured domestically and reused multiple times after processing by commercial laundries. In an April 17 meeting with senior advisers to Vice President Mike Pence, Schwalb encouraged the administration to ask the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to require for reimbursement the use at least 50 percent reusable HCTs to mitigate any future spikes in demand healthcare contact textiles.

Schwalb also noted TRSA’s successful role in convincing state and federal authorities to have linen, uniform and facility services companies included as “essential” services to the economy, thus enabling them to avoid severe operating restrictions imposed on most businesses. “We’re trying to keep your trucks rolling,” he said.

Jason Risley, TRSA’s senior editor, digital/new media, presented findings from a new survey of 118 operator members that closed on April 14. Key findings from TRSA’s bi-weekly Business Pulse Survey included a confirmation of keen interest in the CARES Act PPP loan program, with 70 percent of the survey respondents stating they’d applied for the loans.

On the healthcare front, respondents reported a deterioration from the previous survey that closed on March 27. The latest results showed that 32 percent of respondents anticipate year-to-date revenues falling well below expectations, nearly double the number of 17 percent from the earlier survey. Concerns stem from a widely reported curtailment of elective surgeries and routine procedures due to the COVID-19 pandemic — coupled with a reduced number of linen changes designed to avoid disturbing severely ill COVID-19 patients.

Hospitality operators gave an even more glum assessment of their economic prospects, with 88% describing their revenues as likely to fall well below expectations, versus 57% in the initial survey. For details, see: https://www.trsa.org/news/business-pulse-initial-survey-shows-hard-hits-hospitality-fb-sectors/. For F&B operators, 27 percent said they expected it would take more than 18 months before they could expect a return to pre-COVID-19 revenues. Risley noted that more upbeat findings were reported by industrial operators who participated in the survey. Of that group, only 12 percent said they expected it to take more than 18 months to return to pre-COVID-19 revenue levels.

TRSA members can expect additional weekly updates on COVID-19-related legislation, assistance programs, TRSA initiatives, news and information in future installments of the TRSA Weekly Industry Update. Visit https://www.trsa.org/events/calendar/#1586219522191-6c6d0d6d-2574 to review the tentative lineup for presenters and subjects that will be offered in the coming weeks. A recording of the April 16 Weekly Industry Update is available for viewing at TRSA’s On Demand Learning Center located at http://www.trsa.org/ondemand.

Posted April 20, 2020

Source: TRSA

COVID-19: Porcher Industries Launches Mass Production Of Masks

BADINERES, France — April 20, 2020 — Due to the current emergency, Porcher has launched the development of a technical solution for the production of reusable masks certified by the DGA UNS-1.

Pioneer in high-performance thermoplastic composites and technical textiles, Porcher Industries has adapted part of their factory capacity for the mass production of a technical solution specially designed for producing masks. Started in early April, production capacity has already reached one million masks per week.

Porcher Industries’ teams rose to the occasion, quickly meeting the needs of this new demand by developing a combination of technical materials optimized for non-medical masks. The new hydrophobic filter material has obtained UNS-1 certification from the DGA.

Masks made with this complex material are washable at 60° and can be reused 10 times if conditions for use are respected. Quick drying, they do not lose their shape. They are intended for non-medical purposes to prevent the projection of droplets. They can be used by professionals in contact with the public, such as the police and checkout personnel.

“We wish to pay tribute to all our teams, particularly production and R&D, which have adapted our industrial activity to help us cope with the current emergency. They have been extremely reactive and adapted quickly and smoothly to new requirements,” applauds André Genton, CEO of Porcher Industries.

Results of DGA protocol for Porcher Industries filter material designed for production of AFNOR protective masks Spec. S76-001:2020 UNS-1 for non-medical purposes:

  • Filtration: 97 percent for 3 microns and 93% for 1 micron
  • Breathability: 139L.m-2.s-1
    Performance criteria: AFNOR SPEC S76-001 (DGA report no.: RP/20-2307/DGA MNRBC/2000305/NP)
  • Reusable and washable mask at 60°C in household conditions.
  • Quick-drying (air) hydrophobic material.
  • Dimensional stability.

Posted April 20, 2020

Source: Porcher Industries

Mimaki’s “Together We Print” Supports Print Community

SUWANEE, Ga. — April 17, 2020 — Mimaki USA, a manufacturer of wide-format inkjet printers and cutters, today announced the launch of Together We Print community to promote print service providers.

Small businesses throughout the world are rapidly adjusting practices to endure the global pandemic. Printing & Cutting services play a vital role in this effort. As continued providers of informational signage and graphic communications, print and cut services are now more essential than ever. Many service providers have also begun producing Personal Protective Equipment and other indispensable items such as masks, shields, and gowns. These services are supporting local communities everywhere, giving families and businesses a way forward.

Mimaki wants to help

To help promote the services of print service providers everywhere we’re announcing the Together We Print community. Designed to spotlight firms striving to succeed in the current climate, Together We Print will build community support enabling print service providers to advertise their capabilities, connect with other local businesses that need their services, and support families everywhere. Regardless of the print technology used, Mimaki USA will help promote these services through a website directory, social media posts, and other advertising platforms. Together We Print aspires to support our print community, their families, and the families of every business.

To join the Together We Print community, simply go to https://www.mimakiusa.com/together-we-print and submit the form regarding services that support local communities with print and cut services. We’ll do our part to highlight the print community efforts, thereby connecting businesses that need this support.

We are all in this together, and as a print community we will create innovative ways to stay safe, healthy, and connected. Together We Print. Together we make a difference.

Posted April 20, 2020

Source: Mimaki USA

Freudenberg: European Commission Grants Approval Under The E.U. Merger Regulation For Acquisition Of Low & Bonar PLC

WEINHEIM, Germany — April 17, 2020 — Following the announcement of the offer published in September 2019 for Freudenberg’s planned acquisition of Low & Bonar PLC, the formal application for approval under the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR) from the European Commission was submitted in March 2020 following extensive preliminary discussions and in agreement with the commission. A decision on the application was received on April 17, 2020.

The commission has granted an unconditional Phase 1 clearance under the EUMR.  Completion of the acquisition remains subject to the satisfaction or waiver of the remaining conditions to the offer, including the sanction of the scheme of arrangement by the Scottish Court. Given the current disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is not yet possible to establish a definitive timetable for completion of the transaction. Further announcements will follow as appropriate.

Posted April 20, 2020

Source: Freudenberg Performance Materials Holding SE & Co. KG

The National Retail Federation Statement On Administration’s Tariff Deferral Announcement

WASHINGTON — April 20, 2020 — The National Retail Federation today issued the following statement from President and CEO Matthew Shay on the Trump Administration’s announcement to delay the collection of import duties amid COVID-19 pandemic:

“The White House announcement that the government is providing a limited duty deferral for importers is welcome news to retailers struggling to find any good news during this extremely difficult time. We encourage the administration to broaden these deferrals for additional relief. Retailers don’t build stores, buy products and hire associates only to close their doors for weeks at a time. The challenges to the retail industry brought on by this pandemic are severely acute, at best. This deferral provides some retailers with additional liquidity and better cash flow, giving hope for business continuity and a faster recovery once the pandemic has passed.”

Posted April 20, 2020

Source: The National Retail Federation (NRF)

OEKO-TEX®: No Certification Fee For Face Masks

ZURICH — April 20, 2020 — With immediate effect, the OEKO-TEX® Association will waive the license fee for STANDARD 100 certification of mouth and nose masks.

With the current demand and expert recommendations to wear mouth and nose coverings in public, OEKO-TEX wants to support continued safety of the population. “We need to stay together in this extraordinary situation: now and for our future,” said General Secretary Georg Dieners. “The crisis challenges many manufacturers who are confronted with a logistically difficult task.”

This industry support follows the process modifications for certificate renewals during the Corona pandemic. This adjustment offers an important service for producers of face masks while ensuring continued sustainability and public safety from harmful substances during the corona crisis.

Posted April 20, 2020

Source: OEKO-TEX® Association

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