USA – US-based holding company HPC Industries has formed a joint venture (JV) with Macquarie Group’s Commodities and Global Markets group to build recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) plants in the US.
Dubbed Circularix, the joint venture will develop and operate five recycling facilities, which will be capable of producing more than 275 million pounds of rPET resin a year in total.
The first facility will be located in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, and is scheduled to be operational by December this year.
Verdeco Recycling’s former CEO and founder Alex Delnik has been appointed as Circularix’s President and Chief Operating Officer.
In addition to its investments as a partner in the joint venture, Macquarie is assisting Circularix with project lending, equipment finance, FX hedging and other risk management solutions to support its future growth.
“Consumer brands are struggling to meet their sustainability goals as existing RPET supplies are not meeting the requirements,” said Farahnik, CEO of Circularix.
“Our move into RPET production is the start of a major and much-needed capacity expansion in the United States, and we are excited to play a key role in the plastics recycling industry by uniting our experience with Macquarie.”
Macquarie has played a leading role in environmental product markets, sustainable infrastructure and the waste sector worldwide for more than 15 years.
The firm formed its Sustainable Waste Solutions team in 2020, focused on helping to facilitate the transition to a circular economy by providing finance and growth capital solutions to clients in the waste sector.
Ben Glover, Executive Director at Macquarie’s Specialized and Asset Finance Division, said: “We are delighted to support our customers in delivering the practical infrastructure needed to expand production capacity for consumer recycled materials.
“Enterprises such as Circularix do this. are an important part of the supply chain that will drive post-consumer materials back into high-value recycled packaging markets.”
The joint venture targets to meet the demand for recycled plastic bottles which has risen steadily in recent years in the USA.
It also bridges the gap of more than one billion pounds between current US supply and projected 2025 demand for R-PET for use in bottles, according to a 2019 report by the Recycling Partnership.
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