October 2022’s PACK EXPO International in Chicago was the first major PMMI tradeshow that I’ve visited since the COVID-19 pandemic. Since it had been a while, I was intrigued to see what would be new for the cosmetics and beauty care industry, especially considering the inaccessibility of factories due to the pandemic, the shortage of technical people, and rising labor costs. Well, after many miles of walking the show floor, a lot of observations, and even more questions asked, it was clear that the focus of the show was could be distilled into three main themes: packaging material sustainability, automation, and the digitization of our world. Most of the sustainability…