Monomer Recovery Plant - ICI - c1949

Description

Workers at the Monomer Recovery Plant at ICI BIllingham. Taken around 1949, the photographs are courtesy of Mr Frank P Mee.

Library Reference

Dewey Decimal: 999 Reference: t9683-9684 - link available

Comments

Visitors can add their comments to any image on the site. Maybe you've got a story to share, maybe you can add some extra detail to the image? Click the button to leave your comments.

Add a comment | Ascending | Descending order

Posted comments/stories

Frank P Mee

The two pictures are (I think) the first building Francis Browns of Prince Regent Street Stockton ever made and erected It was a Monomer Recovery plant and on one of the pictures you can see the oven in which the scrap plastic was heated to recover the monomer. It was built on waste ground behind the plastics plant before you came to the old Cyanide plant. In picture t9683.jpg we have on the left Harry King then forgotten. In picture t9684.jpg second from left is myself, I was on a long leave after being abroad and earning some extra money before going back. That puts the pictures in the time frame of late 1949. You knew where you were in ICI by the smells, Plastic's it was the smell of Monomer and next to that plant was the Acetic acid plant which was made with Anhydrite from the mine. The smell was overwhelming at times as some of the product was turned into vinegar. The Cyanide plant we kept well away from as there always appeared to be a lot of dead sea gulls near the place. A small beck running through the plants often ran yellow, it was no wonder the river Tees was polluted. Thank goodness it is all now cleaned up and much improved, pity it took so long.

Posted on: 29/08/2008 12:36:30