This industry includes companies engaged in the wholesale distribution of plastics materials and basic forms and shapes. Industry products include unsupported plastic film, sheeting, rods, tubes, and synthetic resins.
422610 (Plastics Materials and Basic Forms and Shapes Wholesalers)
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were a total of 3,908 establishments involved in the plastics and basic forms and shapes industry in 2001. There were a total of 43,116 employees, with an annual payroll of approximately $2 million. In 2003, the workforce had decreased to 30,279 employees. The annual sales for the industry totaled $10.9 billion in 2003.
The plastics materials and basic shapes sector controls more than 30 percent of the industry in terms of market share. The sector consists of 931 establishments, with total sales of $3.3 million. The plastics materials not elsewhere classified segment made up more than 24 percent of the market, with $6.7 million in sales. The plastics products not elsewhere classified segment made up more than 19 percent of the market, with $6.7 million in sales. Still others included resins with sales of $24.9 million; plastics resins with sales of $8.7 million; synthetic resins with $3.6 million; plastic basic shapes, with $2 million; plastics film, with $3.3 million; and plastics, sheets, and rods with $4 million.
A panel of 67 journalists gathered by the Newseum, a journalism museum, ranked the invention of plastic number 46 on its list of the 100 most significant news events of the 20th Century, according to a February 1999 American Plastics Council (APC) press release. Newsweek magazine seconded this opinion. As the APC reported in November 1999, the year-to-date plastic resin production by August 1999 amounted to 52.1 billion pounds, a 5.3 percent increase over production for the same eight-month period in 1998. August 1999 production reached 6.6 billion pounds, a 0.7 percent decrease from July 1999 production but a 4.1 percent increase over August 1998 production.
Both shipments and employment in plastics rose over the 1990s. Employment continued its annual growth rate of 3 percent since 1974, reaching 1,337,700 jobs by 1996, and shipment values continued their two-and-a-half decade growth rate of 4.1 percent, and between 1991 and 1996 alone shipment values rose 55 percent, reaching a value of $274.5 billion in 1996, according to APC statistics.
The 1992 Census of Wholesale Trade listed 3,490 companies as wholesale distributors of plastic materials and basic forms and shapes. Their combined sales totaled $28.5 billion. At least 160 of these companies reported annual sales of $25 million or higher. The industry employed 25,504 workers and posted an annual payroll of $803.6 million. These figures can be compared to those of the 1980s, where the 1987 Census of Wholesale Trade listed 2,744 companies in this group, with combined sales of $20.3 billion, 28,453 workers, and an annual payroll of $788.4 million.
Between 1988 and 1992, the average return on assets for the nation's plastic distributors dropped 45 percent, from 8.1 percent to 4.6 percent, although individual distributors had varying success. As Mark Bogin, of Roechling Engineered Plastics in Gastonia, North Carolina, observed in IAPD Magazine, "plastic distributors serve a cross-section of industry, and no two distributors serve the same market and industries in the same way." Bogin also said "there is hardly any industry that does not use our products, and regardless of general economic conditions there are always industries which are growing."
According to a report issued by the APC in 2003, the overall industry had remained flat. The economy had weakened by the war in Iraq and the workforce continued to decline. The plastics industry being dependent upon other industry's needs for their products, felt the rippling effect of the downturn in the overall economy.
In 2004, the plastics market began to recover from the downturn and production of plastic resin rose to 6.9 billion pounds in January of 2004, up 2.4 percent from the same time period a year before. The following month the production increased 5.1 percent.
Some analysts project overall plastic demand to increase 2.5 percent or 15.5 billion feet annually to 2007. The demand for plastic pipe is expected to experience the most growth. According to a study by The Freedonia Group, an industrial research firm that the demand is the direct result of "stricter water management regulations, continued highway and street construction, and the rehabilitation of aging or obsolete sewer, drainage and municipal drinking water systems". Construction is expected to contribute 48 percent towards the total pipe production in 2007.
As of 1999, the largest distributor of plastics in North America was the Ashland Distribution Company of Ashland Inc., in Ashland Kentucky. For the year ended September 30, 1999, the Ashland Chemical division, located in Columbus, Ohio, generated specialty chemical sales of $1.1 billion, distribution sales of $2.8 billion, and petrochemical sales of $300 million. As of 1995, the General Polymers Division of Ashland Chemical was the highest-grossing company in this industry, with 1995 estimated sales of $650 million and 300 division employees. According to Ashland Chemical's Web site, "The General Polymers Division is the nation's largest source for prime, packaged thermoplastic raw materials and represents 26 major plastics producers. The division markets a broad range of thermoplastic injection molding, rotational molding, and extrusion materials to processors in the plastics industry through distribution locations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. It also provides plastic material, bulk transfer and packaging services and less-than-truckload quantities of packaged thermoplastics."
The leading distributor of plastic sheet, rod, tube, and film was Cadillac Plastic and Chemical Company, with 1995 estimated sales of $270 million and 1,500 employees. The company, founded in 1945, began as a reseller of surplus canopies from U.S. fighter planes. By the mid-1990s, Cadillac Plastic operated in more than 147 locations around the world. Sheet products, such as Lexan and Plexiglas, were some of the company's best-known products. Lexan, made by GE Plastics, was used in safety glazing, outdoor signage, machine guards, skylights, and windows. Plexiglas, the nation's first commercially available acrylic sheet, was used in display cases and bar-code readers. M.A. Hanna Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, an international specialty plastics company, bought Cadillac Plastic in 1987.
Cadillac Plastic's line of engineering plastics included Nylon, Acetal, Teflon, CastAcrylic, UHMW-PE, and High Performance Polymers (HPP). The company also sold tubing, lighting, adhesives, and silicones. Within the specialty film category, Cadillac Plastic provided materials used in automobile instrument panels, membrane switches, and graphic arts products. The company's Aircraft Products group marketed specialty products meeting FAA standards for commercial aircraft builders.
American Plastics Council, 2004. Available from http://www.americanplasticscouncil.org .
Ashland, Inc. Ashland Chemical Homepage, 2004. Available from http://www.ashland.com .
Bogin, Mark. "Take a Good, Hard Look Around." The IAPD Magazine, December 1993/January 1994.
D&B Sales & Marketing Solutions, 2003. Available from http://www.zapdata.com .
"Seesaw Economic Recovery Leaves 2003 Plastics Volumes Flat" American Plastics Council Website, 9 May 2004. Available from http://www.plastics.org/ .
U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics of U.S. Businesses 2001. Available from http://www.census.gov/epcd/susb/2001/US421420.HTM .
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