A number of prominent names are financing Myplas USA’s first U.S. polyethylene film recycling plant, to be located in Rogers, Minn., outside of Minneapolis. | Joyce Blessthink/Shutterstock
Brand owners and other private and public entities are investing millions of dollars into a plastic reclaimer’s project to build a 170,000-square-foot film recycling facility in the Upper Midwest.
A number of prominent names are financing Myplas USA’s first U.S. polyethylene film recycling plant, to be located in Rogers, Minn., outside of Minneapolis. Employing about 300 people, the plant will be able to recycle nearly 90 million pounds of HDPE and LDPE packaging and film a year when at full capacity, according to a press release.
General Mills, Schwan’s Company, Target, Ecolab and Wisconsin-based film manufacturer Charter Next Generation are making a combined $9.2 million equity investment in Myplas USA.
Additionally, the Alliance to End Plastic Waste and Closed Loop Partners, which are both funded by major packaging industry stakeholders, are each providing “multi-million-dollar debt financing” to Myplas USA to help it build its plant, according to the release.
Lastly, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development is providing Myplas USA with $1 million from the Minnesota Investment Fund and $450,000 from the Minnesota Job Creation Fund.
Myplas USA is an international subsidiary of Cape Town, South Africa-based polyolefins reclaimer Myplas. Myplas USA’s CEO is Andrew Pieterse, who previously worked for nearly 15 years at BP, including years-long stints working in Johannesburg, according to his LinkedIn profile. Pieterse was already an investor in Myplas when he was hired to be company’s U.S. CEO in October 2021.
“Myplas has a deep passion for plastics recycling, and we’re proud to establish our first U.S. plant and our U.S. headquarters in Minnesota,” Pieterse stated in the release. “Our partners’ commitment, investment and innovative thinking, paired with Myplas’ technical expertise, will be transformative for the entire region. We can’t wait to get started.”
The group of companies backing the project is called MBOLD.
In addition to buying a stake in Myplas USA, film producer Charter Next Generation (CNG) has committed to buying most of the recycled resin for the first two years after the plant is operational, currently scheduled for spring 2023. The release notes CNG will use the recycled plastic in a range of food, industrial and healthcare film products.
CNG already has a line of recycled-content films, called GreenArrow. In November, CNG signed a recycled LLDPE offtake agreement with NOVA Chemicals.
Pieterse noted Myplas USA’s mechanical recycling plant will be capable of producing recycled HDPE for use in food-contact applications.
MBOLD members Cargill, General Mills, Schwan’s Company, Land O’Lakes and the University of Minnesota will evaluate using the recycled-content films in their products, according to the release. Land O’Lakes, Cargill, Schwan’s Company and the University of Minnesota may supply film scrap to the plant.
Generic selectors Exact matches only Exact matches only Search in title Search in title Search in content Search in content Search in excerpt Hidden Hidden
Recycled-plastic decking manufacturers are responding to strong markets for their products by expanding production capacity, including UFP buying reclaimer Cedar Poly and Fiberon breaking ground on a facility in Tennessee.
While many industry leaders praised the recent passage of a Colorado bill establishing extended producer responsibility for printed paper and packaging, others are calling for Gov. Jared Polis to veto it.
If $40 billion were invested in chemical recycling technologies and certain constraints were resolved, chemical recycling processes could satisfy 4-8% of total polymer demand by 2030, according to a new analysis.
TerraCycle US continued to rake in more money from companies paying it to operate mail-in recycling programs, but it incurred steeper losses doing the actual recycling of plastic and other materials.
The co-founders of Polycarbin met in medical school, on track to become plastic surgeons. That’s a point of irony now, they said, as their lab plastics recycling business continues to grow.
A recent report on plastic recycling rates from The Last Beach Clean Up and Beyond Plastics has attracted the attention of several large news outlets and the mainstream public, but industry leaders said the data is misleading and counter-productive.
An extended producer responsibility bill that has the support of environmental activists was recently introduced in New York, while a Colorado EPR bill moved to the Senate floor.
Copyright 2022, Resource Recycling, Inc About | Privacy | Contact
Sustainably hosted on wind powered servers by Mobius Intelligent Systems .