Phoenix Technology to produce recycled flake

Phoenix Technologies, Bowling Green, Ohio, a producer of recycled PET (rPET), has announced an $18 million expansion enabling upstream production integration.

The company says it will add a new proprietary wash line, which is expected to be operational by the end of this year, so it can manufacture clean flake. Phoenix uses clean flake as an infeed material to create its rPET, which is used to create packaging for products such as beverages, food, personal care and household cleaners.

Prior to the installation of the wash line, Phoenix has either purchased clean flake directly or sourced baled bottles, which have been reclaimed from curbside collection, tolling this material through a third-party wash operation to create clean flake.

To prepare for the upstream integration, Phoenix says it has worked diligently over the past two years to diversify and strengthen its supplier relationships. The objective has been to source enough bales and dirty flake to feed a wash line with projected output of 50 million pounds per year. The company will purchase raw material for the facility from waste haulers and material recovery facilities (MRFs).

Lori Carson, Phoenix director of commercial operations, says, “We believe that we will have more flake available at the same quality consistency. When we buy finished product or services across suppliers and regions, we see differences in the finished quality, either from what is available for that region or what is available from a processor capability.”

She adds, “We will simply be shifting where in the chain we procure the material. While we hope to grow over time, currently we consider this a substitution, not new pounds, just sourced differently. We expect our range to be about what it has been over the last four to five years.”

Further, Carson says, as the company improves the quality of its material, Phoenix will be able to grow its market.

"Combining the total supply chain, from bale to final pellet, and its processes will allow us to optimize both the wash and flake processing components in ways that we could not when clean flake was coming from external sources,” says Bob Deardurff, president of Phoenix. “The new wash line also will enable Phoenix to fine-tune critical manufacturing variables so that we can better deliver processing and performance attributes of value to our customers.”

The company says it also hopes to better manage its environmental footprint, specifically water used in its process and fuel used for transportation.

The new line will be housed in a leased 66,000-square-foot facility near Phoenix’s existing 90,000-square-foot manufacturing plant. When the operation is in full production, the new facility is expected to employ about 30 people, the company says. This is in addition to the 53 people employed at the main plant.

Using patented technology, Phoenix is able to pelletize and crystallize recycled, postconsumer PET for reuse in consumer packaging applications. State-of-the-art processes and quality assurance standards have enabled the company to develop rPET that can be blended with virgin resin for similar performance, Phoenix says.

Additionally, Phoenix reports that it uses less energy per pound to manufacture rPET compared with virgin PET, contributing to a decrease in the environmental footprint. This results in a sustainable, cost-effective, high-performing solution that many brand owners use in place of virgin material, according to Phoenix.