Midwest Exchange Enterprises has announced that it will set up a new plant for recycling of food-grade post-consumer PET.
Likely to be situated beside its existing recycling plant, the new facility spreads over an area of 120,000ft2 with a capacity of 7,000lb recycled food-grade PET per hour, scaling up the size of recycling operations from 80,000ft2 to 120,000ft2, reported plasticsnews.com.
In addition to PET, low and high density polyethylene and polypropylene are ground at the company's current facility at Gurnee, through wash and dry operation.
According to the firm, it plans to completely cut down the foreign virgin PET resin in the country by producing recycled PET resin from local PET plastic sources to fulfil the needs of the local companies.
Midwest president and CEO Alex Casillas hoped local materials would no longer be sold for off-shore processing.
"We will keep the work and our resources in the United States, employing more of our community and encouraging local job creation." added Casillas.
Midwest has selected Italian firm Amut as its equipment supplier for recycling operations, that it claims would bring cleaning efficiency across a wide variety of materials.
The move also serves the purpose of reducing the carbon footprint of packaging materials and to help companies in North America to use more recycled PET in their packaging, that is expected to lead to a closed recycling loop, the website reported.
