Istanbul: Hasplastik
A new experience this evening, sleeping amongst polyolefin bags. Hasplastik opened their factory doors to me at 10pm so that I had an oasis of calm in the bustling city of Istanbul. Promptly at 9am, Murat Aner, Technical Director of Hasplastik, presents himself at the Editourmobil. This is way beyond the call of duty for him since today is a public holiday in Turkey – independence day. Everywhere, hanging from the windows on every building, flying from cars and flagpoles, the Turkish flag is everywhere. This year the celebrations are somewhat muted, the big firework displays having been cancelled following the earthquake tragedy in Van last Sunday.
Murat takes me round the production area where there are 39 machines manufacturing closures. Most are Netstal machines. The pallets containing all the polyolefin bags, which I was able to see last evening from my window, have now probably disappeared into the various hoppers.
As a parting gift, I receive a bag of closures for our exhibition stand. Murat also promises to come over and bring some new closures, which he cannot for the moment show me. Which reminds me of the stiff challenge awaiting me in the Editourmobil: the luggage compartment. Kay has stuffed it to the brim with luggage, and beer bottle samples for our exhibition. With internal dimensions of 2.2m by 1m by 1.5 m, it is a veritable mountain of stuff. Fortunately, I’ve only visited the preform and cap manufacturers, and the samples will just about fit in the pocket. Next week, however, I will be visiting some bottlers in Serbia, so I need to do some clearing up and clearing out.
I drive some 10 kms further on to visit the Turkish Plastics Exhibition. I had planned to stay for half a day, but two hours proved to be more than enough. Several of the halls featured the multinational raw material producers, others were occupied by Asian companies and there were among the exhibits a few interesting stands, particularly for our sister magazines Plastruction and Polymotive.
Onward and upward, our next port of call is Budapest, where, on Sunday evening, Bericap awaits me.
Picture 1: The Editourmobil at the Hasplastik factory; in the foreground Ayhan Haspalylan, President and Technical Director Murat Aner.
Picture 2: The challenge for tomorrow: sort out the luggage compartment to make room for the bottle samples next week.
