EVANSVILLE, IND.-Sunbeam Plastics Corp. of Evansville is expanding into a new plant in Belcamp, Md. The plastic closure maker will move into a 55,000-square-foot plant that will employ 55 by the first quarter of 1996, said Anna Pattie, human resources director. The injection molding facility, which will make child-resistant closures, eventually is to be expanded to 75,000 square feet and will employ 75.
Pattie would not detail what equipment the firm will buy, but state development officials estimated Sunbeam's total investment at $12 million. Sunbeam got $470,000 for site acquisition from Harford County, and $50,000 from the state for training.
Sunbeam, a division of Rexham Inc., had total sales of about $60 million last year, according to Pattie.
Court blocks city's PB plumbing ban
CHANDLER, ARIZ. - A court ruling has stopped Chandler from enacting its polybutylene plumbing ban, but the City Council will reconsider it, a city official said.
In November, council members voted to ban PB pipe after problems with leaks developed in the city of 120,000 near Phoenix. The ban was initiated by Councilman Roger Peterson, who had leaking pipes at his house. The council acted after public hearings by the Building Code Board of Appeals, said Charles Coleman, Chandler development services manager.
But in January, acting on a lawsuit filed by extruder Vanguard Plastics Inc. of McPherson, Kan., a judge in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix found fault with the procedure used to pass the law. Vanguard President Keith Swinehart said Vanguard wants a chance to defend PB pipe before Chandler government bodies. Vanguard contends the problems were caused primarily by acetal fittings.
Fire hits Consolidated Plastics complex
PASADENA, TEXAS - A March 18 fire damaged a warehouse owned by Consolidated Plastics Co., a Pasadena plastics broker and recycler.
Owner Troy Oates said the fire destroyed about 30,000 square feet of a 120,000-square-foot warehouse complex in Houston, where the company stored materials.
Houston fire officials estimated damage at $700,000. Oates said that figure is too low, but he would not provide his own estimate or say how much inventory was damaged.
``We have two other warehouses that were not affected by the fire,'' Oates said. ``So we should be able to meet with most of the shipments.''
Martin Andrew Adams, 37, of Houston has been charged with arson in connection with the blaze and was held in Harris County Jail in lieu of $20,000 bond.
Consolidated Plastics brokers high and low density polyethylene; polypropylene flake, powder and pellets; film; and baled scrap from its headquarters in Pasadena.
He said the company recently set up washing and cleaning lines at its Pasadena location, and that operation will not be affected by the fire. ``We don't want anyone to think we are out of business,'' he said.
Atwood sentenced for waste storage
TACOMA, WASH.-Joel S. Atwood, president of the former Atwood Plastics Construction Inc. in Vancouver, Wash., was assessed $50 in court costs and sentenced to 30 days in prison March 17 by a federal court following his conviction for illegal storage of plastics-related wastes.
Atwood, 35, also is to wear an electronic monitoring device for 90 days following the jail term, and was given three years' probation in U.S. District Court in Tacoma. He had pleaded guilty to storing 150 55-gallon drums containing varying amounts of acetone or acetone wastes at the Atwood Plastics site between 1991 and 1993 without an EPA permit.
Atwood could have been sentenced to five years in prison and a $50,000 per-barrel fine.
A spokesman for Atwood's most recent employer, Industrial Fiberglass Services Inc. of Battle Ground, Wash., defended Atwood's action to store the drums at the Vancouver site.
``He had a choice between making payroll and meeting the storage requirements,'' said James P. Kennedy, IFS project manager. ``What would you do?''
Atwood remains in the center of another controversy involving IFS. Neighbors had protested Atwood's employment as IFS sales manager. Like Atwood Plastics, IFS makes fiberglass-reinforced plastic containers for the paper and pulp industry.
