Evergreen completes expansion of Ohio facility

Evergreen, a supplier of food and nonfood grade recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET), has finished its building and production expansion at its facility in Clyde, Ohio.   

The company says the expansion began in 2021 as a $22 million project with three lines and evolved as a result of increased customer and consumer demand for rPET plastic. The 54,000-square-foot addition includes four extrusion lines with the ability to expand to six, processing 11.8 billion bottles annually. This will result in a local capacity of 113 million pounds of food-grade PET annually. Evergreen says it processes 217 million pounds of PET bottles across its four North American facilities.  

This expansion was made possible in part by American Beverage Association and the Ohio Beverage Association, in partnership with Closed Loop Partners, as part of a $5 million investment under the beverage industry’s Every Bottle Back initiative. Evergreen says the investment helped it evolve its business model, expand its services to process recycled PET plastic into food-grade recycled rPET pellets used to manufacture new bottles and create a strong local market for recycled plastics.  

“The team at Evergreen and our partners Ohio Beverage Association and Closed Loop Partners are looking forward to sharing this expansion project with our customers and community,” says Omar Abuaita, CEO of Evergreen. “With the financial and strategic support of The Sterling Group, we can respond to the demands of the consumer through growth and innovation and are preparing to share a first-of-its-kind industry announcement soon.”  

The expansion has added 20 manufacturing and management jobs in the Sandusky County region. Evergreen employs 350 manufacturing workers, managers and organizational leaders across four locations in North America. This includes Clyde, Ohio; Riverside, California; Albany, New York; Amherst, and Nova Scotia, Canada.   

“We’re excited to support Evergreen’s expansion, which will help Ohio’s beverage companies reduce our use of new plastic and keep our 100 percent recyclable plastic bottles out of the environment,” says Kimberly McConville, executive director of the Ohio Beverage Association. “Our industry is committed to using more recycled content in our containers and Evergreen’s bold leadership will help ensure our bottles get remade as intended.”