Evergreen bottle-to-bottle recycling site to bolster US rPET supply, US$5M co-funded by Closed Loop Partners

13 Aug 2021 --- A new plastics reclaimer and recycled PET (rPET) manufacturing facility called Evergreen is being built in Ohio, US, to process and ground PET into pellets to make plastic bottles and other consumer goods.

A US$5 million investment is part of Evergreen’s overall US$22 million expansion project that will grow operations and double production capacity by 2022.

Half of the US$5 million investment comes from the American Beverage Association (ABA) in partnership with Closed Loop Partners, the other half from Closed Loop Partners’ Infrastructure Fund.

“Today, there is a misalignment between the current supply of recycled plastics and the growing demand for them in the US and Canada,” a Closed Loop spokesperson tells PackagingInsights.

Evergreen’s US$22 million expansion project will grow operations and double production capacity by 2022.The spokesperson highlights that only an estimated 31 percent of PET bottles and jars are recovered, despite having one of the highest recovery rates in the US.

“Still too much of [PET bottles] go to waste in landfills and the natural environment. There is an enormous opportunity to close the loop on these materials and meet market demand.”

Falling under the beverage industry’s Every Bottle Back initiative, the expansion project is forecasted to yield at least 58 million pounds of food-grade PET in the first year. Cumulatively, the site is projected to produce at least 600 million pounds of rPET food-grade pellets over a decade.

The power of private-public partnerships
Every Bottle Back is an initiative by The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo to reduce the beverage industry’s plastic footprint. The initiative targets improving the quality and availability of recycled plastic in key regions of the US and reducing the use of virgin plastics.

The three FMCG giants have a stake in improving their circularity profiles, considering Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have repeatedly been identified as top plastic polluters globally. Just this week, a UK pollution audit named Coca-Cola and PepsiCo among the country’s top packaging polluters.

The Evergreen investment marks the second Every Bottle Back investment in Ohio. “This project is another example of the power of private-public partnerships created through Every Bottle Back to build a circular economy for plastic and keep it out of the environment,” says Katherine Lugar, president and CEO of the ABA.

The expansion project is estimated to yield at least 58 million pounds of food-grade PET in its first year alone.This investment to expand Evergreen is the tenth of 13 initial projects that the beverage industry has committed to fund under Every Bottle Back. These investments total US$10.6 million in funding and will yield an estimated 647 million more pounds of PET over ten years.

“To build a truly circular economy and meet the demand for food-grade recycled content, bottle-to-bottle recycling is critical,” says Ron Gonen, founder and CEO of Closed Loop Partners.

“This investment in Evergreen helps strengthen the market for recycled plastics and inspire other local markets and states to participate in building a waste-free future,” he concludes.

PackagingInsights recently interviewed Closed Loop Partners’ circularity investments in the retail shopping bag sector.

By Anni Schleicher

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