Coloring the world: Eiffel Tower among LANXESS pigment customers

Aug 19, 2023

Staff writer

Pittsburgh’s yellow bridges – including the Three Sisters Bridges, the trio of identical suspension bridges that span the Allegheny River – are among the city’s most recognizable features.

They’re painted a shade of yellow called “Aztec gold.”

And the yellow comes from iron oxide pigment, like those manufactured by LANXESS Corp, which has a production site in Burgettstown, Washington County.

LANXESS is a Cologne-based specialty chemicals company with more than 13,000 employees in 32 countries and 60 production sites worldwide

The Inorganic Pigments division of LANXESS is the world’s largest manufacturer of iron oxide pigments, with production sites on five continents.

“LANXESS colors the world,” said Michael Mackin, Corporate Communications Manager and spokesperson for LANXESS in Burgettstown.

The blending site at Burgettstown has created the iron oxide pigment colors that are used to color the Eiffel Tower and the cement red balls outside Target stores, and can be found in a variety of textured and colored concrete products, including retaining walls, pizza ovens, patios, and fire pits.

The Burgettstown site specializes in browns. Displayed in jars lined neatly on shelves in the laboratory are a pleasing array of earth-toned pigment samples; in all, the pigment palette there includes more than 180 different shades.

We make yellows in Brazil and Germany, reds in China and Germany, and then we ship them all here and we make browns and oranges. We can make different shades of yellow, reds, blacks and greens,” said Jon King, plant manager in Burgettstown. “We blend everything we have here into whatever color our customers need. It’s kind of like a kid’s dream come true, we’re playing with colors.”

There are 15 employees at the Burgettstown plant, which houses a blending area, laboratory, and warehouse.

The Burgettstown team processes customers’ color and packaging orders.

In the lab – filled with beakers, flasks, scales, mortars and pestles that King jokingly said “looks like a ‘Breaking Bad’ scene” – the color is formulated and sent to the blending facility, where a batch is created.

Once the lab approves the batch, the pigment blend is bagged (sizes range from 8- to 55-pound bags) and hauled to the on-site warehouse for shipping.

The facility houses four giant mixers capable of blending iron oxide pigment batches ranging from 2,000 pounds to 12,000 pounds.

“It’s like making a cake, and it’s messy,” said Barry Kyle, production operator, who was coated in red and yellow iron oxide pigment. “The ‘formula’ comes out of the lab on a sheet of paper, then I take take it and put it together, like making a cake.”

About 12 million pounds of pigment are processed at the plant each year. The warehouse holds about 1.2 million pounds.

LANXESS also plays a role in the Burgettstown community, and focuses on sustainability and climate awareness.

In 2022, LANXESS partnered with Alveole, an urban beekeeping organization working to boost the population of honeybees and to increase awareness about the important role bees play in the world.

The Burgettstown site is home to about 15,000 bees. Giving the hive of bees a safe environment is a way for LANXESS to increase the local bee population and help the community by improving the pollination of local flowers and crops.

“Environmental protection and sustainability are at the forefront of our business and production processes, and the on-site hive has been a physical reminder to our employees, visitors, and business partners to always be environmentally conscious,” said Mackin.

LANXESS also partners with Nazareth Prep High School to provide an internship program to provide students experience in the workforce and to help them develop skills and knowledge they can use in their careers.

The company motto, “Good for business, good for society,” extends to its commitment to closely follow the United Nation’s Global Goals for Sustainability to combat climate change, injustice, and inequality.

For LANXESS, aligning with the sustainable development goals is an opportunity to make essential changes to battle the current climate emergency and pressing social issues.

As a whole, LANXESS has set itself a goal to become climate-neutral by 2040, and it promotes diversity and inclusion – globally, 85 nationalities are represented by employees.

“LANXESS finds productive collaboration among people from culturally diverse backgrounds bringing different ideas and perspectives of employees from different backgrounds increases motivation and facilitates innovation,” said Mackin.

The Burgettstown plant prides itself on a long safety track record. There has not been a lost workday or injury recorded by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration since before the site opened in 2006.

King began his career at LANXESS 26 years ago, working in the lab. Over the years, he earned bachelor and master’s degrees, and “worked my way up from being an hourly employee sitting on a bench making colors for people to somebody actually running the place and making the decisions.

“I think LANXESS is invested in their employees. I was able to move up in the company because I said I wanted to, and they helped me along the way to do that,” King said. “People don’t leave here. It’s a great company.”

Staff writer

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