Exhibitor interview: Star Plastics
In this exhibitor interview
we caught up with Chuck Hoop, Director of Sales at Star Plastics.
Founded in 1988 and headquartered in Ravenswood, WV, Star Plastics is a leader in providing customers with high quality engineered compounds, product solutions, and services. With its product formulation expertise along with its process technology and lab testing capabilities, Star offers a broad line of high-quality custom engineered compounds and specialty products for high-performance and demanding end-use applications.
Star also provides toll compounding and secondary services, and sources and resells a wide range of engineering resins. With strategic partnerships in Asia and Europe, Star is well positioned to effectively serve and support the needs of its global customers.
What do you think sets your company apart from your competitors?
We produce prime-performance products at a cost savings to the processor, with less-than-market lead times (in a standard market). We are also positioned with strategic partnerships that allow us to source and supply material globally while acting locally.
Are there any new technology developments that your company is working on at the moment?
We’ve developed and released a new technology in our Cold Temperature Impact (CTI) Modified PC-Si. This product not only provides high-impact characteristics in extreme low temperatures, it also offers V0 and 5VA ratings, elevated RTI’s, and (f1) ratings with excellent processability.
We also have prime-performance sustainable, recycled-content products with our ReStart product line that offers up to 50% recycled materials.
What are the biggest challenges facing the industry today and how can this be overcome?
The biggest challenge we see facing the industry today is the sourcing of base material in an environment that has high demand and flat supply for many resins in North America. Another challenge to overcome is current freight imbalance from Asia to North America.
These types of issues can be overcome with the diversification of feedstock suppliers for resins, pigments, additives, as well as working with multiple service providers.
We also are helping our customers overcome tight supply issues by providing material alternatives that offer similar performance characteristics to resins that they may not be able to currently order.
How do you see the sector developing in the next five to ten years?
We believe the consolidation of the compounding sector will continue moving forward, which will benefit OEMs and processors alike. Customers, whether it be an OEM or molder, will be able to make a single call and have access to more material options from a single material producer.
What are you most looking forward to at this years’ show?
We’re looking forward to seeing our industry colleagues in person. As one of the first in-person shows, we hope it will have more attendees than previous shows in 2021. Many shows seem ‘stagnant’ with fewer people, and we look forward to seeing a more pronounced attendance as we get closer to the event.
Through conversations with our customers in promoting attendance to this year’s world expo, we see company policy related to COVID protocols being a limiting factor for whether our customers will be permitted to attend.
Star Plastics will be exhibiting at the Compounding World Expo in Cleveland.