Nypro’s Facilities So Green EPA Makes ‘No Suggestions For Improvements’

When Clinton plastics company Nypro and its health care operation NP Medical were nominated a year ago to undergo the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Green Supplier Network assessment, the companies’ managers prepared for a vigorous review of their environmental practices.

“Like any review, we were worried about what would be found — good and bad,” said Edward Philbin, senior director of finance for NP Medical.

“It was another thing on our plate. But we realized there was a real opportunity to learn,” he said. There was also no real need to worry. After a three-day visit to the companies’ 620,000-square-foot mill, the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership — the organization conducting the site review for the EPA — wrote that the companies were, “so advanced and committed to a strong sustainable green package within the plant that no suggestions for improvements can be made.” And it was nominating them for honors.

“We’ve always felt like we were on the right track,” Philbin said. “Getting that confirmation certainly feels good.”

Employee Ownership

The Green Suppliers Network works with large manufacturers like Nypro — which has 1,000 employees overall in Clinton and $1.2 billion in annual sales — to engage suppliers in low-cost reviews to identify more efficient production plans and ways to eliminate waste. A customer nominated Nypro and NP Medical to get involved in the process, said Barry Charbonneau, manager of environment and sustainability for Nypro.

The assessment’s goal is to save money and increase capacity operation-wide, but Charbonneau said the EPA and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership took a different approach with NP Medical and focused solely on the company’s work assembling a product used for IV applications in the medical industry.

“In the realm of sustainability, this is important because customers are looking to do this with their products and this may be the way they’re looking to do it,” Charbonneau said.

Nypro, a private, employee-owned company, is a plastics company that designs plastics, builds molds to shape plastic products, performs plastic injection molding, assembles plastics and prepares products with its plastic parts for delivery.

With primary markets in consumer electronics, packaging and health care, it operates 49 businesses in 16 countries in Europe, Asia, the United States and Central America.

Both the parent company and NP Medical are located in a hulking, three-story, brick mill at 101 Union St. in Clinton that dates back more than 130 years to the formative years of modern American manufacturing. Nypro has a staff of 550 there while NP Medical employs 450.

NP Medical’s primary customer is its parent company.

Nypro’s plastics and molds are used by companies all over the world, including Estee Lauder and Proctor & Gamble.

Clean Room

NP Medical is known for engineering components for IV/infusion therapy and fluid access applications for the health care market.

It has manufacturing or sales facilities in Clinton; Tokyo, Japan; and Jurong, Singapore, including a new clean room manufacturing expansion in Clinton.

The Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership credited the Clinton operation with being an industry leader for its environmental, energy and recycling practices. It praised the company for having a dedicated recycling manager and environmental health and safety manager, noting over the course of a year, the Clinton operation doesn’t send any solid waste to landfills.

“We do it because we believe it’s the right thing to do,” Charbonneau said. “We can make a difference in the environment. It’s what our customers want.”

Instead, Nypro tries to use its waste internally first, Charbonneau said. It then tries to find other companies who can use it in their operations, he said. What’s left over is used as electricity.

In 2008, the company recycled 399,081 polybags and plastic bottles while selling another 618,286 to be reused for $26,814.

It trucked away nearly 58 tons of corrugated paper products, paid more than $20,000 to haul off and incinerate its solid waste, and disposed of 1,000 gallons of solvents — among other things on its cleanup list.

But while the local Manufacturing Extension Partnership office was praising Nypro for its strong environmental practices, Nypro and NP Medical have been focused on improving product quality by opening a new 20,000-square-foot clean room manufacturing facility in its Clinton mill.

The company moved into the third-floor clean room in June and July, Philbin said, and celebrated in August with a ceremony that included Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray and state and federal officials. The room protects air quality and raises the quality of the plastics NP Medical produces for its healthcare clients. 

Sara Withee is a freelance writer based in Millis. She can be reached at sara.withee@nescopywriting.com.