Polykemi's US Arm to Use 50 Percent Recycled Raisins

May, 2021 - By SMI

Sweden-based company is planning to source recycled scrap for their Gastonia plant.

A Sweden-based company, Polykemi Inc. is starting its facility in the U.S., which will compound plastics. The company plans the use of recycled PP of up to 7 million pounds along with other materials each year. On April 14, the governor's office at North Carolina announced this US$ 11.8 million facility, which was followed by a detailed release by Polykemi on April 22.

Currently, the company has its production plants in China and Sweden. However, the plant in Gastonia, N.C. is till date the company's largest investment and first operation in North America. According to Mr. Johan Hugoson, CEO of Polykemi Inc., the production plant will produce compounded resin of more than 14 million pounds every year. Approximately half of this is recycled content is obtained via production scrap.

Polykemi Group is a parent company of U.S. arm Polykemi Inc. The company owns a scrap recycling company called Rondoplast in Sweden, which supplies resin for compounding to Polykemi. For over 40 years Rondoplast has recycled plastic scrap. PP is the most handled plastic and second most resin is PC/ABS (both recycled and prime). To meet the specifications of the American customers, prime and recycled raisins are sourced from a toll compounder in Illinois. However, starting its own U.S. plant would give direct control on the product quality as the location is closer to the customers.

The Gastonia facility will initially buy recycled pellets, however Polykemi plans to install equipment for shredding so that facility is able to bring and recycle loads of scrap. Construction is scheduled to begin in this summer, extrusion equipment would be installed mostly towards the year end, and the company hopes to start operating in Gastonia sometime around April 2022.