What's in a name?

DeAnne Toto

Shakespeare’s Juliet posed the question, “What’s in a name?” While she argues that a name means little compared with the essence of the object or person it stands for, I counter that in some instances, a name can offer valuable clues about the thing it represents. This is best illustrated by scientific terms, such as homo habilis, or “handy man,” which describes modern man’s ancestor who was first known to use tools. But it also can apply to business conferences, as in the case of our annual Paper Recycling Conference & Trade Show. In this case, the event’s name no longer accurately reflected its essence, which created an issue in promoting the event.

If you were among the individuals who attended the 2013 Paper Recycling Conference & Trade Show in Chicago this October, you already know that the Recycling Today Media Group, the event organizer and publisher of this magazine, has announced a name change for the 2014 event. For those of you who did not attend the conference, the event has been rechristened as Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference.

2014 will be the 15th anniversary of the conference, which has evolved in step with the recycling industry itself. This evolution has rendered the conference’s original name incomplete, as it was neither entirely reflective of the event’s coverage nor the scope of many of our attendees’ operations. In truth, for years the event has featured sessions on plastics and electronics recycling as well as wider issues of concern to recycling company operators, such as finance.

We took our cue for the name change from another event we have been successfully hosting in the Middle East for a couple of years now, Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference Middle East.

We’ve also decided to co-locate a plastics recycling conference with our European paper recycling conference, which we’ve hosted since 2004. We’ve been integrating plastics recycling coverage into our European event for the last two years but thought it was time to introduce a plastics recycling conference in this market.

Since their inceptions, each of these Recycling Today Media Group events has helped to connect and inform those individuals who collect, process, trade and consume these materials worldwide.

To those of you who have attended the Paper Recycling Conference & Trade Show in the past, thank you for your support. We trust we’ll continue to see you at the event because we focus on providing in-depth programming, an exhibit hall full of suppliers that provide products and services that are essential to the industry and a number of networking opportunities that help you to get business done. For those of you who haven’t yet attended the conference, we hope you’ll reconsider now that the event’s name more fully encompasses the breadth of programming it offers and more of the range of materials your operations likely are handling.

As you can see, names are not always as inconsequential as Juliet suggests.