Nonmetallics

PLASTICS

North American Technologies Group Inc. (NATK), Houston, has purchased a 200,000-sq. ft. manufacturing facility on 40 acres near Marshall, Texas. NATK will build two new manufacturing lines to produce TieTek composite railroad ties.

The Marshall facility, previously owned by Trinity Industries Inc., is on a main line of the Union Pacific Railroad and has a dedicated spur into the plant.

When fully operational in roughly eight months, NATK hopes to produce 30,000 railroad ties monthly. The company uses recycled post-consumer plastic and scrap tires for nearly 90 percent of the railroad ties’ composition. NATK believes its main supplier, Avangard Industries Ltd., a recycling company with operations in Texas and Mexico, will be able to supply enough raw material to feed the plant.

TIRES

New York State has enacted a law geared toward cleaning up the scrap tires in the state. The law has been designed to create a scrap tire fund that will be used to process scrap tires and to develop end markets for the material.

According to The Rubber Manufacturers Association, Washington, the state has 40 to 50 million stockpiled scrap tires and generates an estimated 20 million scrap tires per year.

The law creates a dedicated fee to fund scrap tire clean-up efforts across the state and to help establish end use markets for scrap tires. A $2.50 fee will be collected at point-of-purchase for all new tires sold. An additional $2.50 per tire fee (including the spare tire) will be assessed on purchasers of new vehicles bought in the state.

The new fees took effect October 1 and are expected to raise $28 million through March 31, 2004. Beginning April 1, 2004, the fees are expected to generate $56 million annually. Part of those funds will be directed to a new scrap tire fund. Through March 31, 2004, $8.125 million will be put into the fund, and $16.25 million will be available annually for scrap tire activities beginning April 1, 2004, through the law’s sunset in 2010.