As the search for PPE (personal protective equipment) continues to grow around the nation, a Shelton manufacturer of engineering- and medical-grade plastics has swung into action.
“I was terrified thinking about our health care professionals, first responders, doctors, nurses and other industries and the shortage of PPE equipment for them, specifically the plastic face shields,” Bing Carbone, president of Modern Plastics, told the Business Journal. “Our normal business is that we are a plastics sheet, rod, tube and film distributor and custom plastics fabricator.
“However, I knew we had great plastics manufacturing capabilities and we certainly have the plastics, so a decision was made that we would produce the face mask shields right away.”
The plastic face shields are “virtually unbreakable,” according to the company. Carbone described them as “an added layer of protection in addition to the N95 masks that are being worn” by first responders.
Modern Plastics ”” which was founded 75 years ago as Modern Glass Co. in Bridgeport by Carbone”™s grandfather Joseph C. Carbone ”” has been inundated with queries since March 20, when Bing posted on Facebook the news of his decision to add the face mask shields.
“I made a single post on a Sunday and it went viral,” he said. “That Sunday afternoon we took our first order for 500,000 face mask shields and we are into the multimillions now.”
The number of orders is, he added, “approaching 10 million and counting.”
The company is producing about 1 million plastic face mask shields per week, with plans to quickly increase that number.
“It”™s all over the place from various states on a direct basis, to hospitals, to health care facilities, to first responders and many other industries,” Carbone said. “We are even trying to cater to the orders where a nurse or doctor calls us and needs three or four desperately.”
On March 30, Modern Plastics donated shields to each of the Shelton police force”™s 50 members.
The company is in the midst of hiring up to 100 to work on its retrofitted assembly line.
“Our normal business is still operating at full capacity,” he said. “We were deemed an essential supplier by the U.S. government”™s Department of Defense because we supply a majority of our plastics as medical-grade plastics that get implanted in the human body. We are successfully managing both businesses, but it is a gargantuan team effort here at Modern Plastics, and with great assistance from our parent company, North American Plastics,” based in Irving, Texas.
“The pandemic has created a new Infection Control Division for us, where we are supplying many more products for COVID-19,” Carbone said, including food protection enclosures (sneeze guards), acrylic and polycarbonate physical contact barriers, modular wall partitions, intubation enclosures used in anesthesiology and others.
“We will continue to be vigilant about meeting demand for our existing COVID-19 products and releasing new products and materials in the coming days and weeks,” he said.
