Unifi opens its Repreve Bottle Processing Center

PET flake produced by the Repreve Bottle Processing Center.

Pictured above: the Repreve Bottle Processing Center's wet delabeler.

Unifi Inc., headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, celebrated the official opening of its Repreve Bottle Processing Center in Reidsville, North Carolina, Sept. 7, 2016. Unifi says the $28 million-plus investment will help the company achieve its goal of vertical integration for its Repreve recycled product line, adding flexibility, expanding production capabilities and supporting volume growth. The Repreve Bottle Processing Center will add 87 new jobs in the Reidsville area, ranging from salaried managers and engineers to hourly operators, material handlers, electricians, mechanics and more.

“This expansion of Unifi’s Repreve business will bring jobs to our state and furthers North Carolina’s leadership in high-tech manufacturing,” said Gov. Pat McCrory at the grand opening celebration. “I am proud that our efforts to improve North Carolina’s business climate, invest in infrastructure and encourage building reuse have helped companies like Unifi grow and succeed.”

The 150,000-square-foot Repreve Bottle Processing Center is at the company’s facilities in Reidsville. According to Unifi, the recycling center is one of the most advanced in the United States, with the capacity to produce annually 75 million pounds of clean bottle flake.

The facility includes a front-end polyethylene terephthalate (PET) purification system, designed, manufactured and installed by Eugene, Oregon-based Bulk Handling Systems (BHS). (For more on this component, click here.)

Unifi will purchase baled PET bottles from material recovery facilities (MRFs) across the eastern United States for processing at the Repreve Bottle Processing Center. Undesirable materials will be removed using multiple processes to ensure that only quality PET bottles are processed further. Unifi will then remove labels, debris and caps from the remaining PET bottles. These bottles will be chopped into flake, washed, dried and bagged for use in the production of Repreve, or sold to other companies for a variety of consumer packaging applications, such as thermoformed food-grade packaging, such as cups and takeout containers, as well as nonfood applications, such as strapping and film.

A PET bottle bale with the bale breaker in the background.

“The vertical integration of our Repreve manufacturing process highlights an important next step in Unifi’s continued path toward sustainability and producing high-quality, value-added products,” said Tom Caudle, president of Unifi, at the grand opening. “The Repreve Bottle Processing Center uses custom-designed, cutting-edge technology and provides increased flexibility that will allow us to better serve our customers, as well as create a new channel of revenue. We are also proud to support manufacturing in North Carolina and to add new jobs in our communities.”

Rockingham County provided a $25,000 matching grant that allowed the Repreve Bottle Processing Center expansion to qualify for a Building Reuse Grant of $500,000 from the North Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority under the Rural Economic Development Division at the North Carolina Department of Commerce. To support the expansion of the facility, a Community Development Block Grant in the amount of $861,000 from the North Carolina Department of Commerce was awarded to the city of Reidsville for a larger sewer line to replace aged infrastructure.

Repreve is used in a variety of auto, outdoor, home and apparel products, including Levi’s, Haggar, Ford and The North Face, with Unifi having recycled more than 4 billion plastic water bottles into Repreve since that brand was introduced.