Business View - August 2015 57
MANUFACTURING
wrong. And the EPA (Environmental Protection Agen-
cy) estimates that it would take hundreds of billions of
dollars to fix.
“But, underground water systems are the third rail of
mayoral politics. No one wants to touch it because it’s
expensive - probably the way it’s going to be fixed is
increased water rates, but no one wants to pay for it;
they’re accustomed to cheap water. On the gas utility
side, when the federal government mandates that you
have to replace lines, the gas utilities are left with no
other option but to ask for rate increases to pay for the
pipe lines. And the reason why is that when gas has a
tendency to leak, people have a tendency to die. And
that’s not the case with water. There might be some
sinkholes and some disruption in service, but nobody
dies from it. So nobody puts a lot of interest into it.
What we’re trying to do is to make people aware that
this exists so they’re not shocked by it when it hap-
pens.
“Our challenge is fighting inertia. People have to recog-
nize that advances in technology, especially in polymer
chemistry, have brought us superior materials com-
pared to what was there before. In every application
where pipe is used, there is a plastic material that will
outperform what was there before.”
As a passionate advocate for the plastic pipe industry,
himself, Radoszewski is careful to point out that the
PPI is still a member-centric organization. “Our asso-
ciation is run by our members. Think of me as a custo-
dian. My job is to look out for the best interests of all of
my members in the various divisions that they serve,
or end markets that they serve, and help them to posi-
tion their products, in the best possible light. We create
the awareness that the product exists, with the next
step to get the approvals done. We help our members
under our banner to get those approvals through the
various code bodies and standard bodies, and then fo-
cus on the promotion of that product, from an industry
standpoint, to gain greater acceptance. Then it’s up to
our members, at the local level, to compete with each
other on service, on quality, on personal relationships
- whatever it takes to close the deal.”
Tony Radoszewski President of PPI
