A state-of-the-art resin packaging and distribution center is heading toward start-up this May in the heart of the world's major polyolefins production region.
Ryan-Walsh, a member of the Vectura Group Inc., is building the two-line facility near the Port of Houston's container terminal at La Porte, Tex. This is the largest container port on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The custom-designed facility will unload polyethylene or polypropylene from railroad hopper cars at either an automated valve-bag packaging line or a fully integrated form, fill and seal packaging line (see drawing).
Valve bags have paper or plastic valves that close automatically as they are filled.
This line has a capacity of filling 800 to 1,000 25 kg bags per hour. Forty bags, or 1 metric ton, will normally be placed on a pallet.
In the form-filling operation, a plastic film sheet coming off a roll is automatically formed into a tube-like container large enough to hold 25 kg of resin. Because resins can vary in density, a computerized operation adjusts the size of the tube so that it can hold the desired amount of resin.
In addition, the lines have stretch wrapping or stretch-hood capability.
With the conventional wrapping technique, polyethylene film is wrapped around the pallet while the stretch hood process puts a single ply polyethylene hood or cover over the pallet.
This latter capability is new to the U.S. for resins, Ryan-Walsh says, and provides more stable weatherproof protection for loaded pallets.
For reasons of purity, only and polyethylene polypropylene will be packaged at the 300,000 sq ft La Porte facility. The company has a polyvinyl chloride packaging plant at the Port of Houston's turning basin.
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