PLASTICS CAREER MOLDED BY FAMILY; MOORPARK COMPANY OWNER FOLLOWS IN FATHER'S FOOTSTEPS.

Byline: Gloria Gonzales Daily News Staff Writer

Nobody had to take Martyn Keats aside at his college graduation party and whisper ``plastics'' in his ear as a word of career advice.

Plastics run in his family, and words like post-consumer resins and high density polyethylene slide off his tongue with ease.

``I've been in plastics forever,'' said Keats, whose 5-year-old Moorpark company Marplast is expanding this year. ``My father owned a plastics manufacturing company in Canada, which he sold to a large, Canadian company in 1987. Then I came to California to work as a consultant to a plastics manufacturer, and I never left.''

In 1993, Keats started up Marplast Inc., a plastics manufacturing company that uses recycled materials in about 50 percent of its products.

Keats' company fills small orders for plastic devices, including prototypes, but he also manufactures huge batches of plastic items ranging from toys to medical devices.

His office in the 10,000-square-foot building off New Los Angeles Avenue is cluttered with samples: shampoo bottles, baby bottles, toys, plastic cubes, orbs and tubes, a plastic bowling pin, a plastic football - and many unidentifiable shapes and strange plastic items.

``This is going to be big this Christmas,'' the Montreal native said, hoisting up a yellow cylinder connected to a pink bladder by purple tube. He headed out to the parking lot for a demonstration. ``This air-powered rocket is better than the other rockets.''

Keats set up a yellow, cylindrical rocket on a stand and attached the purple tube to the pink bladder. He then jumped on the air-filled bladder and sent the rocket about 100 feet in the air.

``This company came to me with the product and they were looking for the right materials,'' Keats said, holding up the High Performance Stomp Rocket.

``Sometimes people come to me with an existing product or part, and we do a little redesign work. Other times people have the idea or concept and we will work on it together. We manufacture some of our own products, but mostly we provide the service to others.''

One of Keats' biggest clients is a company with a new design for a typical household item, a toilet plunger.

``There's a lot of toilets out there, and the market doesn't seem to get flooded - no pun intended!'' Keats joked while demonstrating the plunger's superior suction ability by attaching it to a wall. Wary of his competitors, Keats would not reveal how many plungers his plastic molding machines pump out every month, but suffice it to say it's enough to keep a small town in plungers - and Keats' 30 employees busy.

The plunger, and about 50 percent of the hundreds of products Keats' company stamps out each year, use at least some recycled materials.

``We've used post-consumer resins in other jobs, but in the plunger, the handle is made from 100 percent recycled plastic, and the baffle is about 20 percent,'' Keats said. ``That's a high percentage.''

Manufacturers run into several roadblocks when attempting to use recycled plastics, Keats said. First, they are required by law to use nonrecycled plastics for containers that carry food or cosmetics, including shampoos. Medical devices also require ``new'' plastics. Plus, though many plastics are labeled recyclable, there often isn't a matchup between compatible plastics, and dyes used in many bottles often limit their reusability.

The plunger uses plastics from 1-gallon milk containers. Because Marplast uses recycled plastics, the California Integrated Waste Management Board and the Ventura County Recycling Market Development Zone will help finance the company's expansion with a $334,000 loan. Both government agencies provide low-interest loans as an incentive for manufacturers to use more recycled materials.

Marplast's total expansion costs of $1.4 million will finance a move to a 20,000-square-foot building down the street from its current location. Keats also will buy several new molding machines and hire about 10 new employees.

A $200,000 grant from the Ventura County Recycling Market Development Zone helped Keats get started five years ago.

``Our first product was a fabric softener bottle,'' Keats said. ``We made as much money in that first year as we made in our best month this year.''

Now, Keats uses the plastic from milk jugs, fabric softener containers and laundry detergent bottles to make hundreds of products each year.

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1--color in Simi edition only) Martyn Keats, owner of Marplast in Moorpark, shows the recycled ingredients that his company uses to make the Master Plunger.

(2--color in Simi edition only) One of Martyn Keats' biggest clients is a company with a new design for a typical household item, a toilet plunger.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News