Louisville Plant

Dialog

Rohm and Haas operates with the philosophy that maintaining open lines of communication with neighboring residents about all aspects of manufacturing processes and community issues is the responsible way to do business. We participate in the Rubbertown Community Advisory Council for this reason.

http://www.rubbertowncac.org/

Education Programs Overview

Junior Achievement has long been a corporate priority at Rohm and Haas. In addition to significant cash donations to support JA, about 20 employees teach Junior Achievement classes mainly at St. Denis School on Cane Run Road. The children from first through eighth grade are introduced to the free enterprise system and how business works. JA's board of directors has included Rohm and Haas employees for many years. (Additional contacts: Ann Montgomery, principal, St. Denis School; Elaine Wnorowski, president, Junior Achievement)

Over, Under, Around, Through

How some highschool seniors have overcome life's obstacles.

WBKI-TV came up with a great idea: Create a scholarship program and the station would help promote it. Rohm and Haas employees have for years mentored students at Cane Run Elementary School. Many of these children have enormous mountains to climb to reach success. Wouldn't it be appropriate, then, to recognize some high school seniors who have conquered their own personal mountains and are pointed toward college feeling all the stronger and more confident?

That's how Rohm and Haas created an essay contest about overcoming obstacles. Students from Butler, Doss, Holy Cross, Pleasure Ridge Park, Shawnee and Western High Schools - the schools closest to the Rohm and Haas plant - were eligible to compete. One $1,000 scholarship was available to a student in each school. Employees and members of the plant's Citizens Advisory Council judged the essays, and scholarships were presented to the seniors at their respective awards programs

What the judges read was an outpouring of emotion and courage from students. Some overcame poverty. Others, broken homes. One was dealing with paralysis. Their stories were too good not to share with other students. That's why Rohm and Haas created this booklet. We reprint the essays, with the authors' permission, so that others might be inspired to conquer their own mountains.

Rohm and Haas, with headquarters in Philadelphia, manufactures plastics additives and coatings at its louisville plant. These materials are used in plastic pipes, vinyl house siding, plastic bottles, car bumpers, auto and boat finishes, acrylic paints, adhesives, floor polish, inks, tissue paper, highway paints, and much more. The plant employs 510 people at its facility on Campground Road. Rohm and Haas seeks to be a good neighbor in part through its support of education and after-school programs for kids who live in the vicinity of Rubbertown.

Rubbertown Community Advisory Council (RCAC) Presentations

Prepared in collaboration with the University of louisville, School of Public Health Depts. Epidemiology and Clinical Investigation Sciences and Occupational and Environmental Health.

Air Toxics Study

We all should be concerned about air quality and look for ways to reduce emissions of chemicals, especially air toxics.

Download Presentation: RCAC - Air Toxics Study

Rubbertown Community Advisory Council - A Partnership (Overview)

Rubbertown is located along the Ohio River in western Jefferson County. The dozen chemical companies produce rubber, plastics, coatings, and other chemical products used to make cars, paint, appliances, packaging, and even space shuttle fuel.

Download Presentation: RCAC - A Partnership

Cancer and Jefferson County

Many people are concerned about cancer and its possible links to environment. Should residents near Rubbertown be any more concerned than anyone else? The University of louisville School of Public Health has analyzed cancer rates across Jefferson County.

Download Presentation: RCAC - Cancer and Jefferson County

Since its launch in 1998, Rohm and Haas Company has provided local communities with a special grant-making program called the Community Partnership Initiative (CPI). Today, CPI grants of $30,000 are annually awarded in seven Rohm and Haas communities in the United States, including Louisville.

The CPI program is managed by the Rohm and Haas Community Advisory Council (CAC). The CAC is an open forum for community representatives and the local Rohm and Haas facility to discuss the goals, activities and concerns of both the local plant and the surrounding community.

The CAC is responsible for identifying a focus for the grant, requesting proposals, evaluating grant applications, and ultimately awarding the grant to the winning non-profit organization. To determine the focus for CPI in our community, the CAC recently polled community leaders to identify the most pressing local need. The response from local leaders was clear: activities for youth when school is not in session.

The target communities for CPI are located within a 3-mile radius of the Rohm and Haas facility, located at 4300 Camp Ground Road in Louisville. In awarding the grant, priority consideration is given to programs requiring a grant of $30,000. However, if a viable proposal for $30,000 does not emerge, proposals for grants between $5,000-$25,000 will be considered. Organizations may use the grant in a single year or up to three years.

Everyone works hard on safety to make sure nobody gets hurt. Our safety record is very good, but as long as a single co-worker gets hurt on the job, we're not good enough yet. Back strains and sprains and hand injuries are the most common. We particularly emphasize prevention of those injuries during safety meetings and training programs.

Employees can volunteer to serve on the plant's fire brigade, which responds to any emergencies in the plant. When needed, they also respond to emergencies in the outside community. Fire brigade members are well-trained regularly, as are those who serve as emergency medical technicians (EMTs).

What should you do if there's a chemical release that gets outside the fenceline? You should shelter in place: go indoors, seal off outside air as much as possible, and turn on your radio for further instructions. To help deliver the shelter in place message, Rohm and Haas and the other Rubbertown companies introduced Wally Wise Guy -- a turtle mascot available to make public appearances. For more information, e-mail us back at this web site.

If you hear this alarm, you should shelter in place. This means go inside, close all doors and windows, and listen to the radio or television for further information.

Shelter in plac eevac.wav

Note: If you click on the link above and the sound files will play from your browser. Right click on the above .wav sound files to save them to your hard drive, then open them using windows media player.

For more information, contact the Louisville-Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency, 574-3900.

We believe the health and safety of people is valued above all else. We ensure that our operations, workplace, and products are free from significant risk to the health and safety of our employees, visitors, contractors, customers, carriers, distributors, neighbors, the general public, and the environment.

We meet or exceed all applicable laws, regulations, and company standards, and are committed to continual improvement as shown by our voluntary participation in Kentucky’s Occupational Safety and Health Voluntary Protection Partnership and American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care program.

We provide our employees and visitors with a safe workplace. We encourage and involve our employees in the evaluation and continuous improvement of plant environmental, health, safety, and medical systems.

We strive to eliminate or reduce emissions, discharges, and wastes from every stage of our operations. We are committed to pollution prevention and continual improvement of our environmental performance.

We communicate and listen. We are responsive to our employees, customers, neighbors, and government. We proactively share information concerning potential hazards resulting from our operations or our products.

We ensure that policies and procedures are in place to implement these principles. All managers are responsible for implementing these policies and procedures. In keeping with these policies and procedures, all employees are responsible for their behavior.

We audit our performance. The Louisville Leadership Team, with employee representation, monitors our commitment and progress.

The Louisville Leadership Team

Our products are part of your everyday life.

Rohm and Haas manufactures chemicals. We don't make anything that's sold directly to consumers. But you come in contact with the products we sell to other manufacturers no matter which direction you look.

Plastics additives and impact modifiers make plastic tough and make it possible for plastic to be molded into various shapes. Rohm and Haas sells additives in a powder form that looks like flour, or in a pellet form.

Plastic additives become part of bottles and containers, medical supplies, piping, siding for your house, window frames, and car bumpers. That's just a small sampling.

What do pencils, soft drink cans, and ships have in common? All rely on acrylic coatings like those made at the louisville plant.

Many manufactures use Rohm & Haas Acryloid to produce coatings noted for their toughness and shine. We sell these materials in a solid grade or a solution grade.

One type of acrylic coating provides the finish for your boat or the touch-up paint you use on your car. The coatings also beautify and protect signs and structural steel. They're used on metal furniture and cabinets. You'll even find this super-tough coating on the painted part of an ordinary pencil and in the lining of soft drink cans.

Rohm and Haas Rhoplex emulsions are a key part of latex paint, which brightens count-less rooms, homes, and other buildings. You'll also find emulsion in the polishes that make your floor sparkle.

Adhesives, inks, and coatings for paper goods contain emulsions. Did you ever wonder what holds the fibers together in a piece of tissue paper? Probably not, but if you ever wonder, the answer is emulsions, which are part of cement, caulking, concrete, and other products.

Rohm and Haas Rhoplex emulsions are a key part of latex paint, which brightens count-less rooms, homes, and other buildings. You'll also find emulsion in the polishes that make your floor sparkle.

Adhesives, inks, and coatings for paper goods contain emulsions. Did you ever wonder what holds the fibers together in a piece of tissue paper? Probably not, but if you ever wonder, the answer is emulsions, which are part of cement, caulking, concrete, and other products.

Click HERE for a map of our facility.

1. Emulsion Products Our emulsions go into dozens of products, from acrylic paint to inks. These emulsions make all the products tougher, longer lasting.

2. Powerhouse Our powerhouse generates steam from natural gas and waste fuels.

3. Water Treatment Here, we take raw river water and clean it up for our manufacturing processes all over the plant. Then, before we send it to the Metropolitan Sewer District, we clean it up again.

4. Laboratory This is our plant's quality assurance checkpoint. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, we extensively test our raw materials and finished products to insure that they are of the highest quality.

5. Plastic Additives Here, we produce material added to plastics that make the plastics resist heat and rough handling; our additives also make the plastics capable of being molded into various shapes

6. Maintenance Operating this plant is like running a small city, and we can't afford time-consuming breakdowns; this is where we make sure that doesn't happen.

7. Raw Materials This tall Lego-like structure is where we bring in a major raw material, methyl methacrylate, and prepare it for distribution to other manufacturing processes.

8. Acryloid Coatings Here, we make the component of car and marine finishes and dozens of other products that make them longer-lasting and tougher.

9. Firehouse Our modern equipment is manned by a trained department, capable of responding to practically any situation.

10. Engineering All the pipes and machinery around here have a purpose and this is where all those things are planned, designed and integrated into our plant.