MERRIMACK, N.H. (AP) – The closure of a Merrimack plastic bottle-making plant is nearly complete.

The Amcor PET Packaging plant formally stopped production on Nov. 15, and officials said most of the 105 people laid off from the facility already have left.

The plant’s official closing date is Dec. 31.

The company provided counselors to help employees prepare for job-hunting. Laid-off workers also got from 20 to 40 weeks of severance pay and health benefits, officials said.

Amcor is based in Australia and employs about 30,000 people worldwide.

Students heading to rain forest

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) – More than 25 students from Amherst’s Souhegan High School plan to take a field trip in January that would make some adults jealous.

They’ll be heading to Mexico, where they’ll spend about a week in tropical ecological preserves. The students are required to write a research paper as part of the trip.

The students will enjoy warm weather in the middle of winter, but that won’t be their only perk. They’ll be around spider monkeys, toucans, poisonous snakes, killer bees and the largest species of weasel on the planet.

But school officials said it won’t all be fun in the sun.

A Souhegan teacher will show the students how tropical species differ from those in New Hampshire. Other instructors from several countries also are due to visit.

They trips are to be broken into two sessions, the first beginning in mid-January, school officials said.