Fire destroys Ga. mold-making facility
MONROE, GA. — A fire at Plastic Technologies Co. caused an estimated $3 million in damage to the mold-manufacturing plant and left 55 employees without jobs Thanksgiving Day.
The blaze was reported at 9:12 p.m. by an unknown caller, Monroe Fire Chief Wayne Chancey said in a Dec. 3 telephone interview. He said officials have not determined the origin of the fire. Investigators from the Georgia Insurance Commissioner's Office and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are assisting in the investigation. Chancey said he could say no more than that about the probe.
The 21,000-square-foot building was destroyed, according to the fire chief. A report in the Atlanta Journal quoted the plant's manager as saying the company lost an array of equipment and a number of mold orders ready to be shipped.
Company officials could not be reached for comment.
Brampton sells nine-layer film system
BRAMPTON, ONTARIO — Brampton Engineering Inc. sold a nine-layer blown film line to Holmes Packaging of Rotorua, New Zealand, the firm disclosed Dec. 1.
Brampton said it believes the line is the first commercial nine-layer film system in the world. Brampton area sales manager Lyle Hoegy did not reveal the cost of the line or whether the company plans to build any more nine-layer lines. Brampton's Streamlined Coextrusion Die is key to the system's performance, Hoegy said.
Holmes began running the line in early fall, Hoegy said in a telephone interview from his firm's head office in Brampton. The nine-layer system was Brampton's second major recent sale to Holmes. In 1993 it installed a seven-layer blown film system in Rotorua
Holmes Packaging is a division of H.A. Holmes & Co. Ltd., a private company based in Rotorua, New Zealand.
PPA founder, executive director retires
AKRON, OHIO — Lowell Chrisman, 69, the founder of the Plastics Processors Association of Ohio, resigned as executive director Nov. 18, two months after suffering a mild stroke.
Chrisman is fine and suffered no serious side effects from the stroke, said Kim Keiper, PPA assistant to the executive director. Keiper will handle day-to-day activities for PPA, but Chrisman will remain executive director emeritus, and the organization will be able to draw on his experience, she said.
``His retiring is not so much a result of the stroke, but a desire to spend time with his family,'' Keiper said.
Chrisman was the first publisher of Plastics News and retired from that job in 1993. Prior to that, he was the first publisher of Crain's Cleveland Business, and he was part-owner of Rubber & Plastics News before it was sold to Chicago-based Crain Communications Inc. in 1976.
Tenneco building corporate headquaters
LAKE FOREST, ILL. — Tenneco Packaging has broken ground on a new corporate headquarters.
A unit of Tenneco Inc. of Greenwich, Conn., Tenneco Packaging intends to move 700 employees to the new offices in Lake Forest in February. Currently, the packaging division has offices in the Chicago area, including Evanston, Deerfield, Lincolnshire and North Brook, Ill.
The company is leasing the built-to-suit complex of about 258,000 square feet in Lake Forest.
BASF sells European sheet business
LUDWIGSHAFEN, GERMANY — BASF AG has sold its German and Spanish acrylic and polycarbonate businesses to Barlo Group of Dublin, Ireland, for 15 million deutsche marks (US$8.44 million).
Barlo will take over BASF's Resart GmbH, an acrylic polymer and acrylic and PC sheet works in Mainz, Germany, and Critesa SA, an acrylic sheet producer in Montcada i Reixac, Spain. Combined, the plants produce 48.4 million pounds of acrylic polymer and 52.8 million pounds of acrylic and PC sheet each year.
Barlo, which employs 1,100, posted sales of DM300 million (US$199.8 million) last year in plastics and radiators. Extruded plastic sheet accounted for about 21 percent of that sales total.
The acrylic polymer produced in Mainz will continue to be marketed under BASF's Lucryl trade name with BASF, based in Ludwigshafen, serving as sales agent.
