“Just one word: Plastics.” It’s been over thirty years since the movie The Graduate made that phrase a cultural touchstone. It seems even in this dotcom era, the future is still in plastics.
A new economic study by the Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. reports employment in the plastics industry has grown at an annual rate of 2.7 percent since 1972, and increased 4.4 percent a year since 1994. The report also says that Rhode Island is among the fastest-growing states for plastic industry shipments.
Beyond Cash Donations: How New Forms of Giving Are Transforming Not-for-Profit Accounting
Evolving Funding Landscape for Not-for-Profits Not-for-profit organizations are being asked to do more with less,…
Learn More
Showing 151 plastics industry facilities in Rhode Island, the state is the tenth-fastest growing state for plastic shipments. With a 67 percent increase between 1994 and 1999, plastic facilities generated $2 billion in shipments in 1999.
There are currently 10,800 people employed in Rhode Island’s plastics industry.
Where is such an increase coming from? Are new plastics manufacturers coming into Rhode Island by the score?
”Not in this state,” said Paul Knollmeyer, new product and product development manager at Toray Plastics America.
It seems that the plastics companies are just adding to their staffs.
Toray, which manufactures clear and metallized polyester and polypropylene film in North Kingston, has over 700 area employees.
Jack Murphy, director of New England Operations for the Plastics Industry Trade Association, said the growth in the plastics industry is not so much because of new companies in the area as it is an increase in the need for plastics in high technology products.
”Plastic is the material that is able to keep up with technology growth,” he said. “It’s an exception when something is not made out of plastic”
The SPI’s study also showed that the plastics industry is nationally growing faster than all other manufacturers and is creating more jobs, while continuing to improve in productivity.
Michael Marra, president of Cowan Plastics said the biggest competition doesn’t come from other area companies.
”In this area we have a lot of competition offshore,” he said.
The report showed that international trade is responsible for 15 percent of plastics industry jobs in the U.S., and that the industry had a trade surplus of $5.2 billion in 1999.
”It’s a mix of industries for which they are producing,” said Murphy, “health care, automotive, airbags, electronics.”
Murphy also said the industry has gotten so big in Rhode Island over the last few years because when many of the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and defense-related companies let their employees go, the workers went to plastics.
”The OEMs historically kept on a lot of engineers,” he said, “and when things hit the skids in the early ’90s, some of them went independent or they became part of some of our medium-sized process.”
He said most of those people are now either working directly for these companies or as consultants.
He cited cell phones, beepers, palm pilots, and computers themselves as products that will keep the plastics industry going for a long time.
”The devices you’re going to be using are all plastic,” he said. “In a nutshell, that really reflects why our industry has grown as rapidly as it has.”
