Plastics

Alpek, Indorama, Evergreen parent company each acquire a CarbonLite facility 

A late May online auction of plastic recycling facilities that were formerly operated by CarbonLite, which filed for bankruptcy in March, has allowed three established plastic recycling companies to expand their footprints in the United States.

A report from London-based Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS) indicates DAK Americas, a U.S. subsidiary of Mexico-based Alpek S.A., won the bidding for the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle recycling plant in Reading, Pennsylvania, at the auction. A court filing in early May disclosed its bid for the plant.

The U.S. subsidiary of Thailand-based Indorama Ventures Ltd. submitted the winning bid for a similar CarbonLite plant in Dallas, which will operate under the Indorama Ventures Sustainable Recycling name, while equity firm TSG Shelf II Acquisition submitted the accepted bid for CarbonLite’s Riverside, California, recycling plant.

TSG Shelf II Acquisition is a part of Houston-based equity firm The Sterling Group, other portfolio companies of which include Ohio-based PET recycling firms Evergreen and Greenbridge (formerly PolyChem), plus high-density polyethylene recycling firm Tangent Technologies.

TSG Shelf II also submitted bids for the Texas and Pennsylvania facilities, which ICIS says were accepted as backup offers should the Indorama or Alpek bids fall through or stall. However, those transactions closed successfully in June.

According to ICIS, Indorama bid nearly $64 million for the Dallas plant, while DAK Americas paid more than $98 million for the Reading facility. TSG Shelf II, meanwhile, paid $57.5 million for the Riverside plant.

The Dallas and Reading plants each can produce 42,500 tons annually of recycled PET pellets, while CarbonLite claimed an annual capacity of 50,000 tons per year for the Riverside plant.

Indorama ramps up Mexican rPET capacity

The Indorama Ventures EcoMex subsidiary of Thailand-based Indorama Ventures Ltd. has installed a second polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle recycling production line equipped with sorting machines made by Europe- based technology provider Tomra Recycling. The automated line has been designed to produce 30,000 tons of recycled PET (rPET) flakes per year.

Indorama Ventures acquired the PET recycling facility now known as its EcoMex plant in Zapopan in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, in 2014. The expansion of Line 2 at EcoMex, which includes Tomra devices designed to sort incoming PET bottles and PET flakes, was completed earlier this year.

EcoMex has a total production capacity of 42,000 metric tons per year of flake to be used in recycling processes inside Indorama or by external customers. In 2014 and as part of what Indorama calls an ongoing commitment to meet the needs of its customers and contribute to environmental care efforts, Indorama Ventures Polymers Mexico started the production of FuTuRePET bottle-grade resin, which consists of the flakes produced from postconsumer PET bottles at the EcoMex facility. Tomra’s equipment helps separate the materials by color and resin type.

Indorama says the main objectives of the Line 2 expansion are consolidating the production line, increasing the quality and speed of production and reducing costs.

In a first step, two AutoSort units presort incoming PET bottles obtained from landfills and collection centers, primarily based in central and western Mexico. The presort includes one positive and one negative sort plus a recirculation process for the false rejects from the first two machines.

Presorted materials are then washed and shredded before the respective rPET flakes are further sorted and purified by two AutoSort Flake units.

Germany-based Tomra Recycling, which is part of Norway-based Tomra Systems ASA, designs and manufactures sensor-based sorting equipment for the global recycling and waste management industry. More than 7,400 systems have been installed in more than 100 countries worldwide, according to the company.

Bangkok-based Indorama Ventures is a $10.5 billion chemical company that has PET production as one of its five business segments. It has been investing to increase its global PET recycling presence.