DAK Americas LLC and Shaw Industries Group Inc. have formed a joint venture to produce raw materials for both companies from recycled bottles.
The recycled polyethylene terephthalate (RPET) will be produced by the joint venture, called Clear Path Recycling LLC, at a new facility in Fayetteville, DAK said.
Creating 100 jobs, it will be the largest facility of its kind in North America and the venture will receive state and local incentives, the companies said.
The RPET will be used as raw material for DAK’s PET resins and polyester fibers made at its Leland and existing Fayetteville plants, said Ricky Lane, director of corporate communications for Charlotte-based DAK. DAK is a subsidiary of Alfa S.A.B. de C.V., based in Monterrey, Mexico.
Shaw will use the material to manufacture carpet, Lane said Friday. Shaw, based in Dalton, Ga., is the world’s largest carpetmaker and is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.
Demand from both companies’ customers for products with recycled content has grown, Lane said.
The Clear Path Recycling facility in Fayetteville, which should be operating by the first quarter of 2010, will recycle more than 280 million pounds of PET bottles annually, or about
5 billion bottles, saving more than 1 million cubic yards a year of landfill space, DAK said.
The companies say that energy savings translate into enough to power 18,000 homes a year.
Clear Path will acquire used plastic water and soda bottles from waste management companies to make RPET, Lane said.
Source: theplasticsexchange.com