August 5, 2010
Clear Path Recycling hits ground running
Clear Path Recycling's Fayetteville, North Carolina, PET recycling facility is up and running, having just completed the first part of its Phase 1 roll out. The plant is currently operating at 30 million pounds annualized production capacity, but will reach 160 million pounds annual capacity by the fourth quarter of this year, as the rest of the equipment comes on-line. Clear Path expects about a 70-percent to 75-percent yield rate per bale, which translates to an annual flake production capacity of 120 million pounds by the fourth quarter of 2010.
Clear Path Recycling is a joint venture between DAK Americas and Shaw Industries, as a way to supply consistent feedstocks to their operations.
"We believe that there's a strong market for flake out there," says Ron Salati, Clear Path vice president, in an interview with Plastics Recycling Update. "We're looking at primarily North American buyers for flake; however, we're also moving the odd lots and the off-grade through brokers, which tends to go to China. [But] Shaw plans on using the flake in its carpet operation and DAK's use of the flake will be in its flake and fiber operation. Those two will account for about 75 percent of our production."
"From a cleanliness standpoint, we're producing some of the cleanest flake on the market from curbside bottles," says Salati. "Our end-use applications give us a lot of flexibility in where we source, and we've run some deposit bottles through the plant, which makes life a lot easier. Because of our size, though, we pretty much have to buy from everywhere."
As big as Phase 1 of Clear Path Recycling is, expansion plans call for an additional 120 million pounds of annual capacity, which would bring the total to a whopping 280 million pounds. When that expansion might occur, however, is still too early to tell, according to Salati. An assessment of the Fayetteville plant operations will likely occur in the early part of 2011, which will determine the course of action on any further expansions.
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