Continental PET building Georgia plant CARTERSVILLE, GA.-Continental PET Technologies Inc. in Florence, Ky., is constructing a 120,000-square-foot manufacturing facility on 18 acres it purchased in Cartersville.
Elyse Cochran, president of the Cartersville Chamber of Commerce, said construction has started on the plant, located 40 miles north of Atlanta on Interstate 75.
The company is expected to hire 60-70 workers initially and eventually as many as 120, Cochran said. Continental PET officials declined to provide details about the facility.
Last June, Continental PET announced a breakthrough in bottle technology. The company said it had produced the world's first hot-fillable, multilayer, single-serve PET bottle with post-consumer content.
The firm's parent is BTR Nylex Ltd. of Melbourne, Australia.
Horizon blames layoffs on resin prices
COBOURG, ONTARIO - High resin prices curtailed sales and forced Horizon Plastics Co. Ltd. of Cobourg to lay off about 50 workers.
The custom structural foam injection molder began layoffs Jan. 15 and hopes to recall workers within several weeks, said Clay Elliott, president of the privately held firm. About half of those laid off were part-time employees.
``Rising resin prices affect our parts,'' Elliott said in a telephone interview. ``Small parts of a few ounces or a few pounds are less affected than our parts of up to 50 or 75 pounds.''
Elliott said his firm's sales of unspecified consumer products and building products have been hurt the most by high materials prices, particularly for polyethylene and polypropylene. He said Horizon has not lost any customers and that it is the ``nature of custom molding'' for sales to dry up and then suddenly reappear. Horizon employed as many as 200 last year.
LDI offers Shamrock Plastics for sale
MINNEAPOLIS - Liberty Diversified Industries Inc. announced it will sell its Shamrock Plastics injection molding plant in Minneapolis, a 200-employee operation that specializes in bulk ice cream buckets and other thin-wall packaging.
LDI, a private holding company in New Hope, Minn., has owned Shamrock Plastics since 1972, but Shamrock's profitability had not been consistent in recent years, said LDI President Mike Fiterman.
Fiterman said that improving profitability would require an investment in the plastic molding plant-money LDI has decided to spend on other projects such as a new paper recycling mill under construction in Becker, Minn.
Fiterman said LDI prefers to sell the Shamrock plant as a going concern, if possible. Shamrock operates in three business sectors, packaging, housewares and custom molding. It generates sales of $20 million to $25 million a year, Fiterman said.
Shamrock runs 27 injection molding machines and does printing and decorating. Also for sale are another 13 presses, now sitting idle at LDI's extrusion plant in Baldwyn, Miss.
Fiterman stressed that LDI will continue to run that 150-employee extrusion operation in Baldwyn. To handle the sale, LDI has retained Plastics One Inc. of Wallingford, Conn., and Thomas Industries Inc. of New Haven, Conn.
Profile Plastics building headquarters
NORTHBROOK, ILL.-Profile Plastics Corp. has broken ground on a 71,000-square-foot headquarters and manufacturing building in Lake Bluff, Ill. The new building will allow the thermoforming firm to consolidate its operations, currently located in two buildings in nearby Northbrook, according to a recent report in the Chicago Tribune.
The firm plans to move in June. Profile specializes in thermoforming and pressure forming of heavy-gauge sheet.
Rubbermaid closing wire-coating unit
WOOSTER, OHIO - Rubbermaid Inc. plans to close its wire-coating operation in Wooster in May, as it changes technology for products such as dish drainers.
The Wooster housewares giant said Jan. 11 it will switch from vinyl-coated wire made at the plant to wire coated with powdered polyethylene in a fluidized bed process by Nestaway Inc. of Cleveland. Rubbermaid spokesman William Pfund said the Wooster coating operation used an organosol solution of PVC to coat wire supplied by Nestaway. It will transfer about 60 employees in the plant to other Wooster operations.
