Birch Plastics opens its warehouse to Houston neighbors

Materials firm Birch Plastics Inc. has opened its warehouse to employees and neighbors flooded out by Hurricane Harvey in the Houston area.

Houston-based Birch reopened Aug. 29, but around 20 of the firm’s 27 employees are stranded at their homes, owner Rob Lang said in an Aug. 30 interview with Plastics News. Birch now is in the process of bringing those employees and their families to the firm’s 70,000-square-foot warehouse if they need a place to stay, he added.

The warehouse already is housing around 25 people — and their pets — who live in townhomes adjacent to the Birch site.

“We came in and there were families on our stoop because they had been flooded,” Lang said. “So we opened up the warehouse.”

The Birch site briefly lost power, but it was soon restored. Lang said the firm’s building and equipment are safe, with only a few minor roof leaks.

He added that he’s not sure when shipments will resume to or from the site.

“Driving in today, I didn’t see a single truck on the road,” Lang said. “We had a truck coming in from El Paso, [Texas,] on Monday, and I have no idea where it is.”

Lang said that he and his staff are trying to make the best of their situation. “There’s a chance of rain every day, but right now the sun is out, so today is kind of a cleanup day,” he added.

Birch is a recycling and compounding firm that offers numerous grades of polyethylene, polypropylene, nylon and ABS to a wide variety of end markets. The firm is located just off of the South Loop Freeway — Interstate 610 — in southeast Houston.

» Publication Date: 30/08/2017

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