PureCycle says it’s processing 100 tons per day in Ohio

Polypropylene recycling firm says its facility has ramped up to handle up to 5 tons per hour and 100 tons per day of discarded plastic.

purecycle ironton ohio plastic recycling
“The facility has continued to show progress in the key production areas of feed rates and uptime,” says PureCycle CEO Dustin Olson of the Ironton, Ohio, plant.
Photo courtesy of PureCycle Technologies Inc.

Orlando, Florida-based advanced recycling firm PureCycle Technologies Inc. says beginning early this month at its polypropylene (PP) recycling facility in Ironton, Ohio, it reached a feedstock introduction rate of over 10,000 pounds (5 tons) per hour and has twice processed more than 200,000 pounds (100 tons) of feedstock in a day.

The company, which uses a solvent-based process developed by Procter & Gamble to purify its recycled PP, calls those outcomes “meaningful progress."

“These were two of our near-term goals that we announced during our previous corporate update," PureCycle CEO Dustin Olson says. "The inflection in production that we discussed during the Q2 earnings call is visible, and we are excited with these results.

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“The facility has continued to show progress in the key production areas of feed rates and uptime. This gives us confidence in our ability to achieve our third-quarter goal of 1 million pounds (500 tons) of production in a week, and we look forward to updating the market in due course.

“PureCycle is also excited to enter a new phase as the company transitions from a prerevenue company to a commercial operation.”

Also on the commercialization front, PureCycle says it continues to make progress with its compounding strategy, customer sampling efforts and plans for increased revenue in this year’s fourth quarter.

The company reports it has compounded approximately 25,000 tons to date, with another 500 tons planned for September, and more than 1,500 tons per month planned for the fourth quarter.

PureCycle expects the majority of this material to be sourced into the fabric fiber market following the company’s early successes with these applications.

The company also has entered into a series of transactions with California-based Sylebra Capital Management and New York-based Samlyn Capital LLC to raise gross proceeds of $90 million. The transactions involve PureCycle common and preferred stock and an extension of Sylebra Capital’s $200 million line of credit to PureCycle through the end of March 2026.

PureCycle says the capital raised is expected to enable it to continue executing on its plan to bring its purification process to the market.

“This capital not only supports our existing operations but will also help fund additional activities associated with our Augusta project,” Olson says of the firm’s plans to operate a facility in Georgia. “This investment combined with the progress we are seeing on our production and commercialization efforts at the Ironton facility should enable us to drive toward our long-term goals.”

Dan Gibson, chief information officer of Sylebra Capital Management, says, “Bringing to market next-generation technology is never easy, but the tangible production progress we are seeing in Ironton is undeniable. The operational momentum we are building is increasing our confidence in PureCycle’s long-term success.”