Rockford's J.L. Clark: Reducing waste with reusable plastic packaging

Yahoo

06-06-2025

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — J.L. Clark has been making plastic packaging in Rockford for major brands for more than 60 years.
They're also known for metal products like the packaging for Altoids.
Scott Novak is the company's Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. He gave us a tour of their plastics facility in Rockford. He said the manufacturing process begins with a massive silo outside the facility. It houses 200,000 pounds of resin.
'So the resin comes in from the rail car into the silo,' Novak said, 'and then it goes through overhead pipes into our injection molding press where it's heated and melted. And then we add coloring before it gets into the molding process.'
The process to create one from start to finish seems to take less time than with metal products.
'The molding press has multiple cavities, and each cavity forms one part. The molten resin gets put into the tool. It's heated up. It's formed into the shape of the part, then it's cooled. The mold opens up, and then the parts drop out onto this conveyor,' he said.
'This is a caffeinated pouch package we developed for a major tobacco company. It has a dual sliding mechanism. In this, 20 pouches will fall out. It gives your daily dose of Caffeine. Each pouch is equivalent to one cup of coffee,' he said, while pointing to a new product they make. In all, he said they make roughly 20 different plastic packaging products for major brands.
Each molding machine is able to make 168,000 plastic parts per day.
Novak continues explaining the manufacturing process. 'They move along the conveyor where they're subject to airflow from fans as well as special cooling conveyors because it's very important that the parts are properly cooled so they don't warp, and we can minimize the shrinkage.'
Novak says he is proud of the work that goes into making the product.
'I love it. It's great. I get to work on new projects like this, which is really exciting. We get to help our customers do new and improved things,' he said.
Once molded, the parts are checked for quality. Rejected pieces are moved aside. Those rejected pieces are later recycled, reducing the company's carbon footprint.
The good parts are then organized, boxed by an automated machine, and then stacked, ready for shipping.
Novak says the process allows their brand partners to send the boxes back so they're reused in another effort to be environmentally conscious.
He says it's all about innovation.
'I love coming up with different innovations,' he said. 'Because we do both metal and plastic packaging, you can do some really interesting things.'
He says that an innovative approach is what's kept J.L. Clark going strong for more than 120 years in Rockford.
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