plastic city massachusetts

The municipality includes several small villages. STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, NOV. 13, 2015….Hoping that bans on plastic bags and Styrofoam containers could one day be in place statewide, environmentalists on Thursday celebrated varied plastic bans in place in 27 cities and towns. BOOOOM!!!! Leominster-based Foster Grant built itself into an international fashion icon with its line of sunglasses. In 1956 the city’s 60 plastic companies were generating $20 million a year and employing 5,500 people—80% of the city’s workforce. “It won’t result in an ‘all-plastic house of the future.’ Plastics will be used only where they make sense functionally and economically.”. Plastic Bottle Ban In Concord, Massachusetts Goes Into Effect Concord, Massachusetts has become one of the first communities in the U.S. to ban the sale of single-serving plastic water bottles. Similarly, modern airplanes and many of today’s cars are made partly of plastics reinforced with fiberglass or carbon fiber. As a man who had learned his trade from Viscoloid, only to spin off a competing company, he surely understood the dangers of trade secrets getting out. Leominster’s artisans specialized in combs hand-carved from local cattle horn. He was an architect named Max Abramovitz. The buzzword of plastic has lost its buzz. The law prevents retailers from supplying plastic bags unless they provide a convenient storefront receptacle to ensure used bags are collected and recycled. Goodman had considered celluloid a backup material, but he came to realize that plastics did certain jobs better than anything else. Speakers displayed images of plastic beams and prefabricated walls. “Plastics are cheaper than steel, more adaptable to design changes, and far simpler to mold,” read a 1954 Life ad for a plastic-bodied Corvette; the ad declared it “a car of the future in mass production today.” In 1959 Popular Boating devoted 12 pages to a feature on epoxy, a “new miracle plastic.” These portrayals seemed to focus more attention on the material than on the end product. In 1931 Foster traveled with his son Joe to New York City and visited the Goodman family business. Foster Grant’s mechanics started to take the machines apart, over and over, both to clean them and to figure out how they worked. WORCESTER - The City Council has given preliminary approval to an ordinance that will ban lightweight single-use checkout bags, starting April 1. It was intricate work that required skill in construction and craftsmanship. Foster worked on just one step in the comb-making process. Governor Polito and Secretary Kennealy announced updates pertaining to the state’s reopening process and sector specific guidance. This is the official page for the Plastic City Comic Con! In 1919 Foster left Viscoloid and set up shop in a former laundry. When the first huge crate arrived, Foster’s mechanics pried it open and stared at the strange machinery. We’re no longer surprised to find injection-molded plastic flowers decorating the dinner table, or to drink water that flowed through PVC pipe, or to ride in cars with molded plastic bumpers. Historical happenstance had equipped the city with the technology and expertise to make plastics, and now the dream of a plastic future was in the air, like the soot and steam that rose from Leominster’s smokestacks. But something had changed: even as the new house design harkened back to Monsanto’s House of the Future, a GE expert insisted that plastic was chosen because it was the best material for the job—not because of its cachet. Big thanks to the organizers for making this such a nice event. Combs may seem insignificant among the twists and turns of technological history, but they directly shaped the plastics industry that followed. There he found an indication that synthetic materials were coming up in the world: the Viscoloid factory was stretched to capacity, as were all the city’s major manufacturers. The 2020 Plastic City Comic Con scheduled for Saturday August 1, 2020 will not take place as scheduled. The dreams of a group of small-time 1920s’ businessmen—that plastics would surpass their humble origins and enter every nook and cranny of our built environment—seemed to be coming true. Each item had to be cut out of raw plastic or carefully melted and pressed into a mold, which required a great deal of time and labor. It was an elegant reversal of Jack Goodman’s trip to Leominster a decade earlier. In other words the house wasn’t made of plastic simply for the sake of it. He found himself a hotel for the night and in the morning trudged over to the Viscoloid Company, the biggest plastics manufacturer in town. But demand grew, and so did the range of products that the city produced, which soon included toys, buttons, and frames for mirrors and glasses. Foster, by then in his late 40s, was met by Jack’s excited brother Abe and led to an office downtown. When plastic became a standard material—worn on our faces, decorating our houses, wrapped around our food—it stopped being the material of the future. But what really impressed him was the technology responsible. In the end Foster revealed the secret and asked his plastic-making neighbors for help. On today’s episode we investigate the kiss. The City of Chelsea passed this ordinance in December 2018 in order to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags. The Science History Institute’s museum and conference center are closed to the public; the Othmer Library is open by appointment only. Injection molding machines allowed the company—and indeed the entire city—to churn out products at an unprecedented rate. On December 14, 2018, the City's plastic bag ordinance went into effect. In 1954, at a research conference in Washington, D.C., manufacturers, engineers, and architects discussed applications of plastic in everything from walls and windows to homes and skyscrapers. Learn more >>, Using stories from science’s past to understand our world. More than 70 cities and towns in Massachusetts already have imposed bans. There were plastic cars, fabrics, windows, and airplane parts. It argued that plastics could now truly compete with metals—with one cautionary note: “Time will have to debunk a lot of ideas about using plastics and prove to manufacturers that anything and everything cannot be made of this material.” In other words, many people thought of plastic as a replacement material suitable for almost any product, but its particular uses and advantages were still not clear to the public. He admitted that his colleagues’ proposals were all very exciting, but added, “Don’t think that you have all the answers.” Plastic might not work in every situation—and that’s okay. Plastic vanished, not because people stopped using it but because people stopped noticing it. Goodman saw that Foster’s modest machinery made a pretty good product. Advertisements highlighted advances by drawing attention to new materials. Ductless Fume Hood Partnership with Erlab. Abramovitz’s comments were shrewd but largely ignored. Back when the United States were neither united nor states, regional manufacturing helped free colonists from their dependency on British imports. Leominster had become a plastics capital by accident and by means of a decidedly unremarkable product: the comb. The bill approved by the Massachusetts Senate this week would require retailers to charge at least 10 cents for a recycled paper bag. This time Foster was in a position to inspect the quality of a product and perhaps make an offer of his own. “An injection molding machine.”. what intrinsic quality your material has,” he implored them, “and give us something we haven’t got.”. What happened when the future finally arrived? How were these items constructed? Around the globe the plastics industry was developing a vision of the world to come. The number of plastics processing companies nearly doubled during World War II. He had emigrated from Austria as a teenager and had worked in factories instead of attending high school. The product was mundane, but the stakes were high. Inside the office was a desk covered with plastic brushes, combs, and toys. The functionality of plastic became more important than the dream of plastic as a revolutionary material. A few important components of the ordinance: To speed reopening, government and business leaders are pushing a modern version of a centuries-old idea. Instead of using new materials only where they had an edge on older materials like metal or wood, builders were replacing traditional materials with plastic on principle. Optimism spread too quickly for caution. We have the lowest admission price in the Tri-State area! Common questions ... Is the 5-cent bag charge subject to Massachusetts sales tax? Still, consumers were encountering the material more and more. On today’s episode we turn our scientific lens to the relationship between humans and their furry friends. The ban became effective on January 1, 2020. But it’s also true that plastics really are everywhere in our lives—stitched into our clothing, wrapped around our food, incorporated into our electric grid and computers and skyscrapers. Earl Tupper launched Tupperware there. Engineers had an opportunity to find out what made plastic unique and to make it a powerful specialty product instead of a mere replacement. Luckily for Goodman, though, hunting for plastics in Leominster was like hunting for computer chips in 1980s’ Silicon Valley. We can make the case that the world imagined by the Monsanto House of the Future never came to be. He had the first one shipped to Worcester and only then rerouted to Leominster so rival companies wouldn’t know the source of his new hardware. They became his company’s biggest secret. He may have been losing hope by the time he wandered into the dank and drafty Foster Grant Company, which was housed in a former laundry. Wartime experimentation made plastics an important component of new planes and vehicles. There was a double edge to the city’s success and the success of its main product. His goal: to find a company to make celluloid dice. Plastic City was amazing! The basic idea: start with granules of plastic, melt them, and push the liquid into a mold—all in one automated process. As a family-run business established in 1999, we have developed strong product lines for restaurants, bakeries, caterers, delis and any food service business, as well as for individuals who simply want to have a great party. Plastic City was amazing! But even in 1920, Leominster’s chemists and engineers believed plastics might one day become as ubiquitous as glass or brick. Plastic vs. Metal – Which is best for your project? After Jack Goodman visited Leominster, he scaled up his orders and spread the word about Foster Grant. The trade magazine Plastics Industry ran a special issue on Leominster that listed the region’s advantages. ), Pioneers of plastic recognized the public-relations challenge that new materials faced. In 1957 they built the centerpiece of their work: a prefabricated house with walls, floors, and ceilings all made of plastic. From above it looked like a white cross; from the ground it looked like a spaceship had landed in someone’s front yard. In 1956 the city’s 60 plastic companies were generating $20 million a year and employing 5,500 people—80% of the city’s workforce. Unfortunately the process also proved mind-numbingly dull. Goodman exhausted the larger companies along Leominster’s main streets and turned into the city’s muddy back alleys. “Clothed in plastic from head to foot,” the article declared, “the American of tomorrow will live in a plastics house, drive a plastics auto, and fly in a plastics airplane.” Plastics were more than just a futuristic material: in the popular imagination they were the material the future might be made of. Larger Leominster companies were so busy that they gladly subcontracted to Foster, making him a small cog in a city-sized machine. May 24, 2017 By Melissa. As historian Jeffrey Meikle has pointed out, many promoters of plastics became measured in their proclamations, and plastic gradually lost its utopian sheen. I will be at this event every time they have it. It became another mundane material of the present, like concrete or wood or glass. From that point on, plastics were neither a novelty nor a specialty. Ducted vs. Ductless Hoods – what’s the best choice? A 1919 article in the trade magazine Raw Material, for example, expressed optimism about celluloid, but only as a copy of other materials. The city’s website claims that over 100 small plastics manufacturers operate in the area—impressive figures in an age when the vast majority of consumer products are produced abroad— but only a shadow of the city’s former industrial strength. Unexpectedly, celluloid plastic—a second-rate replacement for wood and bone—proved the ideal material. These included access to shipping and Boston-area universities; but more important, the area had a skilled, specialized workforce raised on comb making and plastic molding. For plastic producers like Foster, injection molding machines had been a holy grail of mass production for half a century. The Viscoloid Company converted the craft industry of comb making into a cutting-edge industrial process. It’s just not good.” According to the Sierra Club of Massachusetts, only about 5 percent of plastic bags are recycled properly in the state. Ivory proved too brittle for the job. Salem City Hall, 93 Washington Street, Salem, MA 01970 Phone: 978-745-9595 City Hall Hours of Operation: Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday 8AM - 4PM, Thursday 8AM - 7PM, Friday 8AM - 12PM Municipal offices will close at 11:30am on Friday, April 2nd, Thursday, December 23rd and … The City's transition away from plastic bags began December 14, 2018. States have a long history of pursuing legislation related to labeling, recycling, and reusing plastic bags. Plastic City Comic Con is the premier event for comics, toys and pop culture fans in North Central Massachusetts! Please avoid putting plastic bags, wraps, and packing materials such as polystyrene foam (Styrofoam™) in your bin. But the companies that helped support it are mostly defunct or now outsource their manufacturing abroad: so even the museum closed in 2008. Boasting over 170 tables, Plastic City Comic Con is the place to be for all your geek needs! Any freaking year!!! Today Leominster is home to small specialty companies like EasyPak, which makes food containers, and First Plastics, which makes custom molded products. Disposable plastic shopping bags can turn into waste and litter. Bring the family down and share our love of comic books with celebrity creators, local talent and vendors! It was about the size of a car’s engine and was made up of a series of horizontally connected chambers. May 5, 2017 By Melissa. As the market for plastics grew to billions of pounds per year in the mid-20th century, the scope of predictions grew, too. It's situated along the Nashua River. Leominster (/ ˈ l ɛ m ə n s t ər / LEM-ən-stər) is a city in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States.It is the second-largest city in Worcester County, with a population of 40,759 at the 2010 census. Its replacement, of course, was plastic. Noyes’s many successors had an expanding market to exploit, and many of them ended up in Leominster—as did a growing collection of heavy machinery. They just didn’t recognize that American manufacturing was enjoying its final decades on top. Best Con of the year! “The future of plastics in building is limited only by our imaginations,” said a Monsanto representative. I should know, I was there crying with him. Keith has the perfect vision of what makes an old-school comic show work due to years of being in the trenches. By car the city sits about an hour west of Boston amid shallow hills and patches of forest. Foster took a risk and bought several of the machines at the steep price of $3,000 each. “The continued progress shown in Celluloid quality and design,” it explained, “gives promise of a still closer approximation of the very nature of the raw materials which it seeks to copy.” Even advertisements for Plastic Wood described the material as “better wood than natural wood.” Though both portrayals were positive, they implied that plastic materials were neither natural nor unique in their properties. At the conference just one speaker cautioned against predictions that plastics might overtake traditional building materials. Leominster and Fitchburg are known as the twin cities. Sam Foster seemed like an honest workaholic. Recycling Programs. When they tried injecting molds with molten plastic, the materials hardened like glue before they could be molded. But Leominster was that sort of place. In the end the reputation of plastics would come full circle, rising to fame as modern materials and becoming so ubiquitous as to seem almost forgettable. Celluloid was off-white, stiff, and flammable. He certainly recognized good craftsmanship when he saw it. “Try and find out . . . DuPont Viscoloid Company closed in 1977. Attendees The main thing that has changed since the height of the mid-century plastics craze is that the amazement has worn off. In the process Foster Grant’s engineers learned to produce dozens more injection molders, each one improving slightly on the previous model. It was plastic because these synthetic materials were well suited for certain jobs. Leominster is located north of Worcester and northwest of Boston.Both Route 2 and Route 12 pass through Leominster. Now the first few working machines had been built in Germany. Plastic Container City is your source for high quality restaurant supplies, catering supplies and cupcake decorating supplies. Vendors were all great. Foster designed decorative flowers whose petals were cut from sheets of plastic and melted into shape. But advertisements now focus on the qualities of those cars—like strength, safety, and sound insulation—rather than on the material itself. Leominster had become a plastics capital by accident and by means of a decidedly unremarkable product: the comb. A working machine could accelerate production for the entire industry, but several failed attempts had quelled enthusiasm. Meanwhile, such plastics as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), along with added plasticizers, encased department-store products, cosmetics, and even food and drink. Mid-century Leominster must have seemed like a boom town in a gold rush. At the time, the United States was reeling under the weight of economic depression, but work continued nonetheless. Plastics experienced a backlash in the 1960s and 1970s when it came under attack as a symbol of consumerism and, sometimes, as a pollutant and contaminant that put the health of the environment at risk. It took many years, but the unique advantages of plastics—durability, adaptability, and efficiency of production—eventually did become clear. His family’s business produced small items, such as combs and billiard balls, and had just landed a big dice contract. Once upon a time a small city in Massachusetts played an outsized role in plastics. UMASS Memorial Medical Group has two convenient locations in Worcester and Cape Cod, MA. Plastics Industry put it this way: “In the not-too-distant future we might find that every component of home building will emerge in some plastic form.”. ​Best Con of the year! Foster Grant made a widening array of household items, from sunglasses to faux flowers to decorative bird cages, but by modern standards the operation remained slow and costly. “Imagineers” from Disney helped design it—and the whole structure was installed in Disneyland’s Tomorrowland. But for plastic producers like Foster, injection molding machines had been a holy grail of mass production for half a century. Goodman decided that Foster Grant would produce his company’s dice. The crowd was happy, the vendors and artists were top notch. Eleven years after Jack Goodman first arrived in Leominster, that process changed—with the advent of a revolutionary but mysterious plastic-making machine. Leominster, Massachusetts, in Worcester county, is 18 miles N of Worcester, Massachusetts (center to center) and 37 miles W of Boston, Massachusetts. At the time, plastic houses appeared to be the logical result of a century of industrial success. Today, in an age when “Made in USA” products are almost as rare as ivory combs, it’s difficult to imagine an entire city unified by a single industry. From mundane celluloid dice to Disney’s all-plastic house, the plastics industry focused on the future. Please check this page for more updates as they become available and contact bagordinance@framinghamma.gov should you have any questions.. There was plenty left to achieve, of course. Added insulation helped keep the plastic temperature constant, which prevented hardening; switching out the feeder nozzle and replacing compressed air with hydraulic power smoothed out the whole operation. There used to be a museum in Leominster that highlighted products made in and around the city, from combs to billiard balls to Tupperware. Leominster had history on its side. COVID-19 Health Passports: What’s Old Is New Again. So Goodman was sent to Leominster by train and rickety streetcar to find his family a supplier. Amendments to the Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance will take effect July 5, 2021. The result is Plastic City Comic Con and the beginning of a new movement! What to know about the statewide plastic bag ban being debated this week Will Massachusetts become the next state to give single-use plastic bags the boot? In 1991, Maine became the first state to enact legislation requiring recycling efforts at retail stores. To grasp the importance of plastic, simply imagine the manufacturing process that predated it. (The house was torn down in 1968, though its concrete foundation still exists—as a planter.) Goodman’s dice deal seems minuscule, especially compared with the scale of plastics production we know today. They used polystyrene, a new plastic resin made from styrene, which in turn was produced by “steam cracking,” or adding pressure and catalysts to gaseous fossil fuels. In 1988 Popular Science ran a cover story about plastic houses made by General Electric that seemed oddly familiar. In 1940 a Popular Mechanics story argued that plastics were nothing short of a revolution in the makeup of our lives. From the beginning the work was plentiful if mundane. One early comb maker, Enoch Noyes, carved combs in the 1760s by soaking a horn in hot oil, splitting it in two, sawing out a flat shape, and finally cutting each tooth individually.