Polymer Resources Inc. (Farmington, Connecticut, USA), a leading U.S. compounder of high-quality engineering resins, announced the completion of the expansion and enhancement of its compounding facility in Rochester, NY. To meet customers’ growing needs for quality engineering resins, the company has significantly upgraded an existing building on its campus to support a 40% increase in overall compounding capacity.
The updated facility also features increased grinding and shredding capacity for recycling plastic waste to support circularity and sustainability. Furthermore, its spacious floor plan, new safety features, and amenities are designed to provide a comfortable and efficient work environment for employees, whose numbers are expected to increase by double digits in the coming years.
“The expansion of our Rochester facility is strategic to the robust growth of our compounding capabilities and the expansion of our sustainability initiatives, both of which are increasingly important to customers,” says Scott Anderson, president and chief operating officer of Polymer Resources. “In addition to continuing to address customer requirements for scalable, reliable resin supply, short lead times and exceptional quality, the updated facility will help us advance sustainability through plastic waste collection and recycling. We are committed to helping our customers reach their production and sustainability goals, as well as meeting our own sustainability goals, and this new facility position us to achieve those objectives.”
The project, which was completed in just over a year, expanded the footprint of the compounding facility from a total of 35,000 sq. ft. (3,251.6 m2), previously divided between two buildings, to 60,000 sq. ft. (5,574.2 m2) in one building. This change offers far more space for compounding and grinding operations, storage, a laboratory, and offices, along with improving process efficiency and streamlining workflow. Further, the Rochester site offers Polymer Resources an opportunity to add on to the building — up to a total of 100,000 sq. ft. (9,290.3 m2) — in the future.
The Rochester plant compounds a wide range of engineering resins, from polyphenylene ether and polystyrene blends (PPX) to various grades of polycarbonate (PC), acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS), polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), PC/ABS, and PBT blends. Many of these grades are available unfilled or with different loadings of mineral or glass-fiber reinforcement. The facility focuses on supplying large amounts of material, including full and partial truckloads (LTL volumes) to customers developing important applications for a variety of industries, including the electrical, industrial, non-invasive medical, consumer goods, transportation, and building and construction sectors.
Source: Polymer Resources, www.prlresins.com.