Niagara Bottling acquires shuttered rPlanet Earth PET recycling facility in Vernon, restoring 45MT capacity

USA – Niagara Bottling has acquired the shuttered rPlanet Earth PET recycling facility in Vernon, California, a 305,000-square-foot plant that processes B bales from curbside bins, to vertically integrate its bottling operations.

The facility will go through a phased restoration and become fully operational and integrated into Niagara’s network, which includes bottling facilities throughout the U.S., Mexico, Australia, and the United Kingdom. 

The company has already filled several positions and plans to hire 60 team members, including many from the former rPlanet Earth operation. 

The facility is expected to initially process 45 million tons of rPET annually, which will be used in Niagara products.

A Shrinking Domestic rPET Capacity

Including rPlanet Earth, seven PET reclaimers have closed since 2025, resulting in the loss of more than 25 percent of U.S. reclamation capacity and one-third of curbside-collected PET, according to figures from The Recycling Partnership and the Association of Plastic Recyclers. 

At the time of rPlanet Earth’s closing, the APR claimed the closure was caused by low demand for its products and increasing competition from a surge of low-cost imported material and oversupplied virgin plastic. 

Niagara’s acquisition is a rare reversal of that trend, bringing shuttered capacity back online rather than losing more.

Vertical Integration as a Strategy

Most beverage brands purchase rPET from independent reclaimers. 

Niagara’s vertical integration means the company will sort, clean, and reprocess PET into rPET flake and pellets, then blow those pellets into bottles, all under one corporate umbrella. 

This eliminates the transaction costs and margin stack of buying from a third party. It also gives Niagara control over the quality of the rPET feedstock, which can vary significantly between reclaimers. 

Niagara president Rali Sanderson stated that the company is proud to bring this facility back to life and become one of the few companies in the country with a true bottle-to-bottle process.

The B Bale Challenge

The facility processes B bales, which come from curbside mixed recycling bins. B bales contain a mix of materials that are more difficult to process than A bales (which are source-separated PET bottles). 

Processing B bales requires more sophisticated sorting and cleaning technology, which rPlanet Earth had installed. 

Niagara’s acquisition preserves that specialised infrastructure, which would be costly to replace. PET surpassed aluminium as the most recycled material in California in 2025.

Producer Responsibility in Action

Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, commented that Niagara’s commitment to producer responsibility will help ensure that billions of PET containers returned for recycling by California consumers will make their way back into new containers, reducing pollution and reliance on fossil fuels while creating jobs and economic growth, adding that this is a tangible investment in California’s closed-loop recycling economy.

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