Building Business From Green-Field To Working Plant 1

This sequence shows the development of a business taken from idea through architect's drawing board to complete, fully functional, expanded polyethylene foam production plant that we built on a site that had been reclaimed from a coal mine in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, UK. We took this field, that at one time had been the site of a mountain of dross removed from local mines during the days of mining but which had since been reclaimed for new development, and built a completely new production plant here. Since then, the plant has been extensively expanded to meet growing demand for its products. This was the a great example of building new business starting from an idea through to fully functioning operation delivering product to customers.
The start-up was funded in part by UK Redevelopment incentives in a town that had seen major falls in employment rates as local coal mines and steel plants closed. Perhaps ironically in retrospect, many of the families of miners and steel workers from this valley moved to Pennsylvania as US industry began to develop which is why there are now so many Welsh named towns in PA and other industrialized parts of the US.
Perhaps also ironic, being that the Plastics Products industry is such a modern day technology business, is the fact that this town, Merthyr Tydfil, was the literal birth-place of the Industrial Revolution because it was one of the very few places in the world where all the essential ingredients for steel co-existed in close proximity: Coal, Iron Ore and Limestone.
It is also worthy of note that "Merthyr Tydfil" is the Welsh for "Tydfil, the Martyr", supposedly a sister of King Arthur. Watch the movie "How Green Is My Valley" for an idea of how things were in this valley back in the day. Lastly, note that Catherine Zeta-Jones came from Swansea, a town just 25 miles down the valley. Other notable Welsh icons include Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, good old Tom Jones - The Voice, Shirley Bassey and Charlotte Church.