This is, in fact, bad news, especially for the employees of the plant who will be let go.
I must say, however, that all of these plant closures and the tightening up of the manufacturing processes of the major film manufacturers makes 'business' sense.
With the way manufacturing processes and logistics have been developing over the past decade or so, I can't say that I'm surprised...Truthfully, if it's not already the case, within a few years, we will probably see all manufacturing of film done in Asia. When you balance off the costs of doing 'local' manufacturing (in smaller plants across the globe) and then shipping locally against manufacturing in a single massive plant and shipping globally to regional distribution centres, well, the latter is much more rational (from a business sense).
I don't have a crystal ball, but I would submit that it all means the continuation of the manufacture of our favourite films and chemistry...It's all a huge shake-down.
Kent