Plastics Color Corporation Launches Eco-Friendly Color Concentrates
Calumet City, Ill., January 18, 2010--Plastics Color Corporation (PCC), a leading supplier of color concentrates and additive masterbatches for the plastics industry, today announced a new line of color concentrates made partially with post-consumer and industrial plastic content, providing manufacturers with a way to meet recycled material requirements while protecting valuable natural resources.
The recycled colorants are offered in a variety of resin types and wide range of colors. The recycled content of the concentrate formulations range from 25 percent to 82 percent, depending on their color. The new color concentrates are suitable for many applications including playground equipment, construction material, furniture, pallets, packaging, and house wares.
“The product line was developed in response to customer requests for products that aid in their sustainability initiatives,” said Joe Byrne, Plastics Color Corporation’s vice president of sales and marketing. “One of the key elements of sustainability is to reduce the use of products derived from limited resources, such as petroleum. Every pound of post-consumer resin we use helps to reduce consumption of virgin material, therefore minimizing the impact of depleting our limited resources.”
Walmart is just one end-user that is driving the creation of more earth-friendly products by requiring its 100,000 global suppliers to quantify their own sustainability programs by completing a survey and tracking their “green” efforts. As consumers demand more sustainability in the products they purchase, all manufacturers will be looking for more recycled raw materials and reduced energy usage in production.
“We’ve been developing and testing these new products for the last several months”, said Wes Woldt, Plastics Color Corporation’s director of operations. “Vendor selection and qualification for sources of post-consumer regrind was critical in the process. Our number-one priority in developing the line was to create a quality product that meets our customer’s technical requirements and helps them achieve their sustainability objectives.”
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Contact:
Christine Stadler
Marketing Director, PCC
216-401-9009 |
Plastics Color Applies Tomorrow’s Best Practices Today in Clean-Compounding Facility — Plant Within a Plant
JIT and closed-loop manufacturing translate into cost savings
Calumet City, Illinois—July 22, 2009—Plastics Color Corporation (PCC), a leader in delivering color concentrates and additive masterbatches to the plastics industry, operates its Plant Within a Plant as a clean-compounding facility applying best-practices manufacturing that much of the industry has yet to adopt. Operating on PCC’s Asheboro, North Carolina, campus since 2008, the Plant Within a Plant has already won plaudits and customers for configuring a dedicated closed-loop manufacturing system around a quick-turnaround, just-in-time production strategy.
The 7,000-square-foot Plant Within a Plant is a fully functioning manufacturing unit that operates alongside PCC’s traditional production platforms on the North Carolina campus. It is a separate, self-contained operation that allows PCC to apply and evaluate the most advanced manufacturing techniques, including just-in-time production, under actual conditions. Already serving the needs of customers such as medical-devicemanufacturers, the Plant Within a Plant is not merely attracting and keeping customers, but
advancing PCC’s corporate culture as a whole after four
decades, says Douglas Borgsdorf, PCC President.
Borgsdorf points out that the Plant Within a Plant anticipates the industry’s general requirements for 2014: optimal production turnarounds and a closed-loop manufacturing system — a resource-planning architecture in which production planning drives the master schedule that in turn drives the material plan that dictates the capacity plan. As key elements of lean manufacturing, just-in-time production and a closed-loop system maximize the use of existing inventory, thus generating additional cost savings for the customer.
Currently, the Plant Within a Plant is capable of handling a maximum capacity of 2 million pounds annually. Additionally, the Plant Within a Plant is the template for the reengineering of manufacturing operations throughout PCC, which operates facilities in Illinois and North Carolina, as well as in China. Already regarded as a market leader for the array of processes and materials it handles, PCC won wide industry attention in 2007 when it began to offer an innovative line of masterbatch additive using a new impact modifier from Rohm and Haas, ParaloidTM-BPM 500. Paraloid-BPM 500 broadens the usability of bioplastics, making them stronger without sacrificing clarity.
During PCC’s planning stages for the Plant Within a Plant, current and prospective customers listed their chief concerns as contamination control, production continuity and expertise in handling the Drug Master File process, which supports the ability to meet food contact requirements in the United States and abroad. The Plant Within a Plant, Borgsdorf says, relies on minimal human intervention to ensure the least chance of material contamination.
“We talked to customers in the market and asked what we and they needed to look like in five years,” he adds. “The industry is moving toward quick-turn, just-in-time processing, as well as toward more closed-loop systems for clean compounding. Today, we’re making that all work in one facility.”
Particularly for companies in the food or medical packaging industries, reducing the risk of contamination is all-important, explains Joe Byrne, Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Byrne says: “It has been important for customers to see how we handled materials and how the cross-contamination risk has been almost eliminated by using such equipment as a sterilized water bath utilizing UV filtration and a closed-loop water system.”
Borgsdorf notes how one plastics manufacturer, vetting possible long-term vendors, visited PCC at its Illinois headquarters, but committed to using the company as a supplier after watching the Plant Within a Plant in action in North Carolina. “After seeing what we could do,” Borgsdorf recalled, “the manufacturer said, ‘You’re my future supplier right now.’”
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Contact:
Christine Stadler
Marketing Director, PCC
216-401-9009
About Plastics Color Corporation
Previous News Releases
Plastics Color Corporation launches an Additive Masterbatch with Rohm and Haas’ Paraloid™ BPM-500: the innovative “clear solution” to strengthening bioplastics.
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