“Because “over there” the work can be done by slave labor with no environmental restrictions.”
The process of turning the pellets into packaging is one of heat, pressure, and the mold or sheeting mill. No real environmental impact. It’s just cheaper to transport the raw pellets and create the necessary packaging on-site rather than bringing the completed packaging to the site.
Think of the packaging of milk in the half-gallon and gallon containers. If they were brought in empty from outside and ready to fill, you’re paying a lot of money to transport air. Instead, they buy pellets and have a blow-molding process to create containers that are then filled with milk for transport to stores.
T-Bird45 is absolutely correct about the logistics. It would be silly to fabricate end products here in the US. And, he’s right about the environmental impacts.
The ethane cracker and polyethylene plants in Houston essentially convert an 8 cent/pound fuel to 60 cent/pound resin.
The ethane cracker and polyethylene plant typically add most of the value on the way from ethane to plastic film, not the film fabricator in Vietnam.
The US chemical industry — Texas and Louisiana in particular — is globally competitive in plastics. This is an extraordinary accomplishment given that there is very substantial capacity in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar and they, too, have access to abundant ethane.
About fifteen years ago people in the US industry were concerned about the future of ethane as an ethylene feedstock. Thanks to fracking that has changed 180 degrees. Obama gets zero credit for that. He and the Democrats have consistently opposed fracking ever since it was demonstrated as a viable technology.