Dart manufacturing plant in Tumwater to close soon

Dart Container Corporation is closing its Tumwater manufacturing plant, it confirmed with The JOLT yesterday.

The factory employs approximately 30 people at its facility near Olympia Regional Airport; they make foam food service packaging. The Tumwater plant is “is the smallest of our manufacturing plants,” according to Margo Burrage, director of corporate communications for the company.

The company’s foam recycling program ended on February 28. Prior to that, the public could drop off clean foam 24 hours a day at the Tumwater location and during business hours at a satellite collection point at the Thurston County Waste and Recovery Center in Hawks Prairie. 

Market conditions are forcing the closure, according to Burrage. “We’ve seen a steadily decreasing demand for foam foodservice packaging in the Tumwater service area for the past several years,” she explained.

“Production will cease in the next few weeks,” she said, adding, “we’ll move equipment and conduct other closure activities over the next several months.”

“Employees will be made an offer of severance and job placement services,” according to Burrage. This is consistent with the U.S. Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), which requires most companies employing more than 100 workers to provide 60 days advance notice of plant closings and mass layoffs. As of March 2, Dart is not shown as registered in the Washington State Employment Security Department’s WARN database, which lists such employers.

The company also operates a distribution center in Lacey which will remain open, the company stated. “Unfortunately, there are no open positions at that facility to offer to Tumwater employees,” according to Burrage.

Dart is based near Lansing, Michigan and employs some 13,000 people at 34 other locations in the U.S. and three other countries.