BHS to Equip $60m CarbonLITE PET Plastic Bottle Recycling Facility in Texas
Los Angeles based PET bottle recycling company, CarbonLITE Recycling has signed contracts with Eugene, Oregon based recycling equipment manufacturer, Bulk Handling Systems (BHS) for the supply of primary process equipment to be installed in its new plastic recycling facility in Abilene, Texas. Once operational, the 200,000 square foot (5700 square metre) plant is expected to recycle around 100 million pounds (45 million kg) of PET beverage bottles into pellets that can be used to make new bottles. It is also expected to employ more than 100 personnel. The CarbonLITE group currently operates a similar facility in Riverside, California which also has a capacity of roughly 100 million pounds per year. According to CarbonLITE, in keeping with its philosophy of carbon reduction, it intends to power the Abilene plant with 100% green energy. Equipment The plant’s front-end, bale-opening and bottle sorting will be built by BHS using sorting modules from its Nashville, Tennessee based subsidiary, NRT. The plant will feature a BHS Debris Roll Screen®, three Nihot Windshifters, five NRT SpydIR®, four NRT ColorPlus™, an Eddy Current Separator, Magnets, and Conveyors, Structure and Platforms. In addition, BHS explained that label removal, bottle-washing, grinding and flake-washing modules will be sourced from Novara, Italy based equipment manufacturer, AMUT and food-grade purification and pelletising will use the Prime technology from EREMA North America. The total investment in equipment and infrastructure is said to exceed $60 million. Neville Browne, president of CarbonLITE is confident of a smooth ramp-up for the new plant. “We have had a very important learning curve in Riverside that has played, and will continue to play, a critical role in both the design and implementation of our plans for Abilene,” he said. Market drivers CarbonLITE explained that it has a strategic alliance with bottled water firm, Nestlé Waters North America, and that its Abilene plant will be supplying Nestlé’s bottling facilities near Dallas. “The beverage bottling giants are all committed to incorporating post-consumer material into their bottles,” explained Browne. “Some companies are more aggressive than others and Nestlé is certainly leading the charge with its 50% post-consumer initiatives,” he continued. Brown is confident that the market for high quality post-consumer PET material will continue to grow, and believes that all new plastic bottles should be made from old plastic bottles. “The only defence for single-use plastic packaging is to make certain it is made from earlier generations of itself rather than from virgin raw material,” he concluded. Installation of the equipment in Abilene will begin in Q4 2014 with first production expected in Q2 2015. Read More Republic Services Upgrades 400 TPD Material Recycling Facility in North Carolina Republic Services has dedicated its newly expanded and upgraded 400 ton per day Conover material recycling facility (MRF) in Catawba County, North Carolina. BHS Installs 30,000 TPA Material Recycling Facility in California Bakersfield, California based Metropolitan Recycling, a joint venture formed by five privately held local recycling companies, has opened a new state-of-the-art 50,000 square foot Material Recycling Facility). Enerkem’s 38m Litre Waste to Biofuel Facility Inaugurated in Alberta, Canada Canadian biofuels firm, Enerkem has officially inaugurated its first full-scale municipal waste to biofuels and chemicals facility in Edmonton, Alberta.