M. D. Webb to J. R. M. Hutcheson on Moving Customers Off Loose Jute Bags (1969)

A two-page memo of March 7, 1969, headed "Loose Jute," from M. D. Webb of J-M's asbestos fiber division ("A.F.D. Asbestos," at Asbestos, Quebec) to J. R. M. Hutcheson, answering Hutcheson's letter of March 6 to N. W. Hendry. Webb writes that "It is our intention to have all of these accounts switched to an acceptable package by the end of 1969" and attaches a status report on six fiber customers still taking fiber in loose jute bags: Bendix, Raybestos, Dow Chemical, Karnak, Delco Moraine and Asbestones, together taking several thousand tons a year. Bendix, for one, believed it would have to modify equipment and was "in no hurry to do so," while Raybestos's senior management was pressing its engineers "to eliminate the dust problems of loose jute in their plant" at an estimated cost of more than $100,000.

What it shows

By 1969 J-M treated its loose jute fiber bags as a dust problem at customers' plants and set a deadline to move its remaining jute customers to pressure-packed bags. Some customers were slow because changing over meant new equipment. Overseas, most of J-M's fiber still went in jute bags (Poutiatine to Breese on export packaging, January 1969).

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

J-M plans to discontinue the use of burlap or jute packaging by the end of 1969 and have all its customers switched to an acceptable packaging such as pressure packaging. Of course, there is reluctance to make the switch on the part of some of J-M's customers. (See J.R.M. Hutcheson memorandum. 3/3/69, to N.M. Hendry, and M.D. Webb memorandum, 3/7/69 to J.R.M. Hutcheson.)

Editor's note: J-M's description dates Hutcheson's memo to Hendry March 3, 1969. Webb's reply refers to it as a letter of March 6, 1969, and it is not in this file.