This year’s event includes over 13 hours of networking, tabletop displays, receptions, coffee breaks, and a welcome reception. © INDA

With the largest hygienics conference just nine days away, INDA is ready to welcome over 500 industry professionals and 53 tabletop displays to the fifth edition of Hygienix, the premier event for the absorbent hygiene and personal care markets, which takes place from 11-14 November, at the Hyatt Regency Houston Hotel, Houston, TX.

Featuring three days of programme content, scheduled networking, industry innovations, and awards, Hygienix is devoted to the latest in sustainable technologies, emerging markets, converting challenges, product and technical innovations, and market trends in the absorbent hygiene and personal care industry. More than 500 professionals from 24 countries with 53 tabletop displays attended last year’s event to address issues and advances affecting the largest global nonwoven and engineered materials sector.

Keynote speakers

The area of environmental sustainability of absorbent hygiene and personal care products will be at the forefront of the conference topics for Hygienix 2019. Three keynote speakers highlight the programme:

• Marcus Eriksen, PhD, co-founder and Director of Research of the 5 Gyres Institute – will present how companies can address their part of the plastic pollution problem and minimize the impact of plastics in the environment.
• Karen Fingerman, PhD, Professor, University of Texas at Austin – will discuss how Gen X, Millennials, Gen Y, Gen Z, and the new Gen Alpha all fundamentally alter society by differing in characteristics such as education, communication, values, marital patterns, and childbirth.
• Suzanne Shelton, President and CEO, The Shelton Group – will present new research indicating 40 percent of millennial women who expect to have a period are using or considering reusable period products.

Other notable presentations include:

• Mary Ankeny, Cotton Incorporated – presents the path of cotton and synthetic microfibers as they shed, enter waterways, and break down in different aquatic environments.
• Yijian Lin, PhD, The Dow Chemical Company – introduces designs for recycling and explains how creating a more “mono” material can simplify the recycling process and improve chances of recyclability, content for every hot melt chemistry used, and SBS/partially hydrogenated resin hot melt chemistry.
• Christophe Morel-Fourrier, PhD, Bostik – explains megatrends and how substances of interest and recent concerns of trace level chemical substances present in baby diapers or femcare products have surfaced in the disposable hygiene industry and have “shaken” the AHP industry and its supply chain.
• Sventlana Uduslivaia, Euromonitor International – reveals the latest global consumer findings on green/ethical living, attitudes towards health and the environment, and perspectives on the definition of “natural”.
• Pricie Hanna, and Colin Hanna, Price Hanna Consultants LLC – presents a play-book for how diapers must be manufactured, marketed and sold to millennial parents based on leading brand strategies.

Other highlights

Three finalists for INDA’s 2019 prestigious Hygienix Innovation Award will present their game-changing innovations that use nonwovens and engineered materials in a creative, novel, and technically sophisticated approach on 12 November for a conference participant vote.

Finalists include: Regalite UltraPure – a new innovative hydrocarbon resin from Eastman, Fitesa SMA Bico – a new PE/PP spunbond and PE meltblown nonwoven from Fitesa, and the Feur System – from Vemarei LLC, a new discrete faecal incontinence protection product.

The Hygienix Innovation Award winner will be announced on 14 November.

Hygienix will also feature the presentation of the INDA Lifetime Technical Achievement Award on 12 November to recognize an individual whose technical achievements have significantly contributed to the growth of the nonwovens industry. The event will also present the INDA Lifetime Service Award on 13 November to recognise an individual possessing a long-established record of service to INDA and the nonwovens industry as a whole.

www.hygienix.org