Trevor started his career in a purchasing department in machinery/injection molding. He quickly found that he didn’t enjoy sitting at a desk. “I wanted to focus on something more functional, something more hands-on,” Trevor said.
Soon after this realization, he attended a job fair and found an opportunity to work at Glycon, a corporation that designs and manufactures feed screws and more to help plastic processors improve quality and productivity. The company works with various industries, from automotive to flexible packaging.
On a certain day, Trevor might be overseeing the lab or testing different feed screw designs on various types of resins, from HDPE to bioplastics. Another day, he might be performing technical services on customers’ machines or making sales calls. He enjoys the freedom and the ability he has to focus on different areas of the plastics industry.
“If anything surprised me about the plastics industry, it’s the versatility” Trevor said. “Every day, there’s research going on for new resins and applications. These developments help companies streamline their operations and may include lightweighting automotive components by making them out of structural plastics versus metal.” A more recent development Glycon has had the privilege of helping with is a process that reduces cycle times of dashboard components by almost four times.
“If there’s something you’re interested in—food, cars, makeup, you name it—there’s a job in the plastics industry that can help you explore it.”
As a millennial, Trevor has many peers who question the impact of plastics on the environment—and he understands their confusion. “Again, I never realized the versatility of plastic until I started working in the plastics industry,” Trevor said. “There are so many helpful plastic applications in things we use every day, but I think people in general are more concerned about the post-consumer plastic waste they see in the environment.”
Trevor said he’s happy to educate others about the possibilities of plastics, as well as its true sustainability. “Post-consumer plastics don’t have to go to landfills,” he said. “There are so many cool things the industry is doing to combat this—honestly, any plastic can be recycled or reprocessed in some way to avoid being landfilled.”