Axion International Announces Expansion Plans

In a news release, the company says that in light of the increasing demand for its products, Axion has requested that its manufacturing partner, Ultra-Poly Corp., Portland, Pa., expand its operations to better respond to demand. The company says it expects the expansion project to be complete by early May 2011.

As part of the expansion, Ultra-Poly’s facility will be implementing longer shifts, adding two additional molding machines as well as dedicated bale-breakers and grinders to process the incoming bundles of raw recycled plastic material more efficiently for Axion, the company says.

"Expanding our manufacturing capabilities has been a major focus for Axion over the past several months," says Steve Silverman, Axion president and CEO. "With our sizable recent influx of new domestic and international orders from countries such as Canada, Morocco and Australia, we are quickly adapting to our current sales orders and expect to be increasing our production requirements even further to meet the growing demand for our environmentally friendly alternative to traditional building materials such as wood and concrete."

Marc Solda, Axion executive VP in charge of operations, adds, "What this expansion also represents is a concerted effort on behalf of Axion's management to broaden our network for sourcing high-quality plastic material from reprocessors and recyclers. By adding dedicated bale breaking and grinding machines, Axion can now accept post-industrial and post-consumer plastics in larger quantity bales straight from municipalities and waste treatment centers, providing for a more diverse and streamlined supply chain along with greater cost efficiencies."

According to Axion, Ultra-Poly is the largest reprocessor of post-industrial polypropylene and polyethylene plastics on the East Coast.

"We are pleased to work with Axion as we implement various capacity enhancements for their manufacturing process at our facility," says Alan LaFiura, co-owner of Ultra-Poly. "We pride ourselves on being a one-stop source for virtually all of our clients' plastics needs and look forward to working more with Axion as their technology grows in popularity in the United States and countries around the world."