Safety Awards from PSSMA

The Industrial Bags business of Mondi in North America has earned PSSMA awards for plant safety at its Louisville, Ky. and Salt Lake City, Utah manufacturing facilities. The awards were presented by Paper Shipping Sack Manufacturers Association Chairman Don Belmont at the organization’s April 20 seminar in Atlanta.

According to Mark Ushpol, president, Mondi Industrial Bags in North America, the awards reflect Mondi’s Zero Harm safety philosophy and fundamental values included in The Mondi Way.

“Passion for performance, caring and acting with Integrity are Mondi’s core values practiced worldwide,” says Ushpol. “They effectively cultivate a safe, productive and harmonious work environment and are largely responsible for the accolades we collected today.”

On behalf of the Salt Lake City facility, Health, Safety and Environmental Coordinator Melaina Mansanarez accepted the 2015 “Outstanding Plant Annual Safety Improvement Award for Plants with Over 350,000 Man Hours.” Industrial Bags’ Manager Corporate SHE John Raevuori accepted on behalf of Louisville’s facility for “Outstanding Plant Safety Experience for 150,000 Man-incident Free Hours in 2015.” The award was in the category for manufacturing plants with less than 150,000 man hours per year.

Salt Lake City cut its number of recordable injuries in half, from 6 in 2014 to 3 in 2015.

The Louisville plant is now approaching its third consecutive man-incident free year.

Overall, the Industrial Bags business of Mondi in North America improved recordables by 32% year-over-year, reducing its TRCR from 2.73 to 2.03.

According to Salt Lake City’s Mansanarez, management commitment to improving equipment guarding and a renewed emphasis on Lockout Tagout procedures played a key role in the plant’s improved safety record. Lockout Tagout safeguards employees from coming into contact with hazardous energy. As part of Mondi’s HSE improvement plan and to focus on top risks the company’s goals for 2016 include an emphasis on working safely at heights.

“We want to be an example of a plant working safely at heights,” Mansanarez says. “We’re putting time, energy and money into improving our working at heights program by adding anchor points to equipment, doing fall protection training and installing a guardrail system around the entire perimeter of our plant’s roof.”

Mondi Salt Lake City is AIB certified and mainly serves the building products/cement, chemical/mineral, pet and food industries. Salt Lake City produces three main bag types - pasted valve, pinch bottom, and PeelPak® for the dairy Industry.

Health, Safety, and Environmental Manager Jason McCarty reports from Louisville that his plant’s culture of safety is responsible for a man-incident free record of almost three full years.

“Overall the biggest factor we have working for us is our culture of high safety awareness,” McCarty says. “Our employees believe in safety and understand what they can and cannot do. We look out for each other and hold ourselves and each other accountable for following all safety procedures. This has really contributed to our success. We initiated an equipment guard program for our bag machines some years ago, and we continue that process with each new piece of equipment.”

Mondi’s Louisville plant manufactures WPP industrial bags used in the food and animal feed industries.

Dick Storat, president of PSSMA, said: "The data we collect from our members enables us to measure the industry's safety performance. This award is well deserved. The positive actions being implemented by Mondi Industrial Bags and other members we've recognized through our annual safety awards, year after year, have helped our industry accomplish a 92% reduction in reportable incidents between 1994 and 2015. We are very proud of that and applaud them on their success."

 

About Mondi Industrial Bags in North America

Mondi in North America designs, develops and manufactures solutions for its Industrial Bags, Consumer Packaging, Coatings and Sack Kraft Paper customers.

Mondi Industrial Bags, North America, produces ultra-strong paper bags for high-speed filling, air-permeable bags featuring hermetic and vacuum sealing, sewn open mouth, valve, pinch bottom, block bottom, woven polypropylene and slider bags, as well as two-ply bag constructions made from high performance kraft paper. It serves the sugar, gardening, building and construction, pet food and animal feed industries. Mondi offers the hygiene certification scheme AIB for food and animal feed applications.

Mondi creates packaging and paper solutions that touch millions of lives every day.

 

We are Mondi: IN TOUCH EVERY DAY

At Mondi, our products protect and preserve the things that matter.

Mondi is an international packaging and paper Group, employing around 25,000 people across more than 30 countries. Our key operations are located in central Europe, Russia, North America and South Africa. We offer over 100 packaging and paper products, customised into more than 100,000 different solutions for customers, end consumers and industrial end uses – touching the lives of millions of people every day. In 2015, Mondi had revenues of €6.8 billion and a return on capital employed of 20.5%.

The Mondi Group is fully integrated across the packaging and paper value chain – from managing forests and producing pulp, paper and compound plastics, to developing effective and innovative industrial and consumer packaging solutions. Our innovative technologies and products can be found in a variety of applications including hygiene components, stand-up pouches, super-strong cement bags, clever retail boxes and office paper. Our key customers are in industries such as automotive; building and construction; chemicals; food and beverage; home and personal care; medical and pharmaceutical; packaging and paper converting; pet care; and office and professional printing.

Mondi has a dual listed company structure, with a primary listing on the JSE Limited for Mondi Limited under the ticker code MND and a premium listing on the London Stock Exchange for Mondi plc, under the ticker code MNDI.

For us, acting sustainably makes good business sense and is part of the way we work every day. We have been included in the FTSE4Good Index Series since 2008 and the JSE's Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Index since 2007.

 

Mondi in North America, Industrial Bags - Media Contact:

Bob Giuliano
Tel: +1 610 328 1051
Email: bob.giuliano@prplace.biz

Mondi in North America, Industrial Bags - Customer Contact:

Michele Gleason
Tel: +1 770 243 5420
Email: michele.gleason@mondigroup.com

 

Paper Shipping Sack Manufacturers Association Chairman Don Belmont presents safety award to Mondi Industrial Bags’ HS&E Coordinator Melaina Mansanarez.

Paper Shipping Sack Manufacturers Association Chairman Don Belmont present safety award to Mondi Industrial Bag’s Manager Corporate SHE John Raevuori.