Plastics Manufacturers Ditch Poisonous Element
In September, the EPA issued a complaint against Hudson Color Concentrates of Leominster, a maker of dyes for the plastics industry, for its handling of lead-containing pigment powder.
By February, when the EPA announced a settlement of the complaint in which the company agreed to pay a reduced fine, it also noted that Hudson had eliminated the use of lead pigments entirely.
Banished from paint as gasoline in the United States many years ago, lead is a dirty word for many consumers. In 2007, the recall of lead-laced name-brand plastic toys that had been made in China caused an outcry among customers. But in some sectors of the plastics industry it’s only in the last few years that new technological advances have allowed for the elimination of lead.
Hudson Color did not return calls for this story, but other area plastics companies said they have also decided to eliminate the use of lead over the past few years, with or without a push from environmental authorities.
Getting Proactive
S&E Specialty Polymers in Lunenburg was at the forefront of getting rid of lead four or five years ago, according to Ilia Charlat, the vice president of research and development and sales.
“We looked at the future and we saw that in a short period, people would start asking about it,” he said.
Charlat said it was difficult at first to find alternatives that would perform as well as lead-based products in some areas. The company sells custom compounds to a number of industries, and he said lead has electrical properties that make it particularly valuable for some uses in wire and cable.
But Charlat said alternatives have now improved enough that S&E can fill almost all customers’ demands without using lead. And he said most customers wouldn’t want to buy anything that does contain the substance.
“At this point, a lot of industries would be concerned,” he said, including the wire and cable and footwear markets the company serves. “Most of the industry is kind of pushing us now.”
Another local custom compounder, AlphaGary Corp. in Leominster, completely eliminated lead last year after moving in that direction for years, according to HR Manager Bob Cox.
“We just didn’t want to keep running lead,” he said. But, he added, developing alternatives took time.
“Lead’s a very useful element,” he said. “It can do a lot of things.”
Cox said the elimination of lead qualifies the company to run materials for customers that it otherwise couldn’t.
Controlled Substance
Both Charlat and Cox said there wouldn’t be anything illegal about using lead-containing materials if they wanted to, but they would need to follow government regulations on accounting for their use of lead and how they handle it.
Frank Esposito, a reporter with the industry publication Plastics News, said most companies in the industry are trying to eliminate lead where they can. And he said the fact that many plastics makers now bill their products as “lead free” demonstrates that customers are paying attention.
“They’re not doing it to win the Humanitarian of the Year Award,” he said.
Esposito said there are still companies that haven’t eliminated lead entirely, perhaps because they’re used to the products they’ve always used and reluctant to experiment with less-proven ways of doing things.
“It’s almost more a function of being set in your ways,” he said.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments