P.E.I.'s pop bottling plant will close Friday, three weeks in advance of legislation that will allow the sale of canned pop on the Island for the first time since 1984.

The last bottling of the old Seaman's brand, established in 1939, will be Friday. The pop will be produced in cans in Moncton.
(Kevin Yarr/CBC)

Of the 80 workers at the plant, 27 are being laid off.

David Hilchey is with the Pepsi bottling group in West Royalty.

"We'll still be employing people here to load the trucks for our drivers to use during the day," said David Hilchey, a manager at the Pepsi Bottling Group plant in Charlottetown.

"We'll be using it as a distribution centre like we do in most facilities across Atlantic Canada."

Environment Minister George Webster suggested in January the laid-off employees would find work at the recycling depots or with the company hired to administer the cans.

"We believe when we go to the container system package that we're going with we can actually, probably, employ the other … people," Webster told CBC News in January.

But on Wednesday, Webster said the workers are on their own when it comes to finding another job and will have to apply to the recycling depots or to Label Construction, the company that won the contract.

"I just assumed that those people would go and look for jobs within the new system," he said.

"One would assume that they would have a bunch of jobs available for people next month."

Label Construction declined to be interviewed by CBC News about the possibility of hiring workers who are being laid off from the bottling plant.

Pride in glass

While the closing of the plant is disappointing to the workers, they have known for years that the plant was only as secure as the government regulation that kept cans off the Island.

Charlie Seaman has worked for the pop plant for 35 years, and will be staying on with the new distribution depot.

"I find it a little bit sad. We were quite proud of producing the glass product," said Seaman.

"We always knew that if there was a change in regulations that we would be forced, and with that we just have to roll with the change."

The managers at the Pepsi plant say they'll be grilling some steaks for employees Friday to mark the last day of bottled pop production. There'll probably also be some pop served up, and it will be in bottles, because the sale of canned pop won't be legal until May 3.