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Western Industries Plastic Products Group is known for bringing "value added" solutions to its partners and leveraging its unique manufacturing platform and innovative product development capabilities. So the availability of a new and naturally renewing ocean precipitated calcium carbonate that could replace expensive plastics resins was worth investigating for a new proprietary product line from the company.
Western Industries has traditionally relied on mined calcium carbonate as a low-cost filler in their plastics. However, the physical properties of mined calcium carbonate invariably took a toll on the manufacturing equipment, especially with the volume loads needed to create large-sized products.
As a result, John Mars, Executive Director of Operations and his technical team took a shot at presenting Oshenite? to their management.
“Our team has over 100 years of cumulative experience in the blow-molding business so they are typically skeptical of anything new…and anything new has to work with the same efficiencies and effectiveness as the technically sound system we have in place before the substitution. Oshenite? worked seamlessly…we didn’t have to change our tooling set-up at all.
“Not only does Oshenite? provide a more sustainable, eco-friendly additive, it also allows for more cost-effective production through faster production times, lower processing temperatures, and more consistent quality in the blow molded product. This is no easy feat when you are molding at the huge sizes we do,” stated Mars.
Western Industries’ Plastics Products Group put Oshenite? to work in their Styleworks Tough Tote brand for the first time in June of 2012. The Styleworks Tough Tote, which is 20% made with Oshenite?, is now available for sale at major retailers.
Per Mars...“Now that we have seen the manufacturing cost efficiencies and the delivery of a quality product in large-scale production, we are considering the added benefits of the Oshenite? enhancer product for our customers as well as a new sustainability platform for Western Industries using “made with Oshenite?”.