The Plastics Pipe Institute, Inc. (PPI), announced the winners of its yearly Members and Projects of the Year Awards Program. At its annual meeting in Idaho, the PPI membership recognized five projects and five PPI members for exceptional contributions to the industry. Submissions in each of the association's five divisions are reviewed, evaluated and voted upon by PPI members.  PPI is the major North American trade association representing all segments of the plastic pipe industry.

“Once again, we had unprecedented attendance at our meeting,” said PPI President Tony Radoszewski, CAE. “This year, we received excellent participation from our members and saw an increase in the number of nominations for this program. We continue to see more and more different uses of plastic pipe. This was evident in our Projects of the Year that included two installations that used plastic pipe in rather unique ways, and also with other winning projects that used miles of the pipe to speed installation and for cost efficiencies.”

The winner of the PPI Building & Construction Division Project of the Year was Uponor, Inc for its Wilshire Grand Center project in Los Angeles. More than 20 miles of Uponor's 3/4-inch PEX tubing was intertwined throughout the rebar in the concrete base for the Wilshire Grand Center in order to keep the slab at an even temperature to prevent cracking in the 21,200 cubic yard foundation that was poured in less than 19 hours.  To properly cure the massive, 82 million pounds of concrete for the base of the Wilshire structure, the engineer specified a hydronic cooling system that used the Uponor PEX tubing to keep an even temperature in the slab to ensure it wouldn’t crack.

Other winners included:

PPI Corrugated Plastic Pipe Division Project of the Year: South Carolina Department of Transportation Gateway Storm Water Drainage System, Advanced Drainage Systems, Inc.

PPI Energy Piping Systems Division Project of the Year: Texas A&M Chilled and Hot Water Line Systems, ISCO Industries and Performance Pipe

PPI Municipal & Industrial Division Project of the Year: Water Delivery Pipeline to Rural Amish Community, Core & Main and WL Plastics

PPI Power & Communications Division Project of the Year: Illinois Tollway, Blue Diamond Industries, LLC

PPI Member of the Year Winners included:

Building and Construction Division Member of the Year: David Nickelson, REHAU

Corrugated Plastic Pipe Association Division Member of the Year: Tony Kime, Bluewater Pipe, Inc.

Energy Piping Systems Division Member of the Year: Dustin Langston, WL Plastics

Power and Communications Division Member of the Year: Thomas Stewart, Dura-Line

Additional information can be found at the Plastics Pipe Institute's website.

Visit www.plasticpipe.org.