In a statement released today, Evergreen, a plastics recycling and manufacturing company owned by The Sterling Group has announced that it has acquired recycling companies UltrePET and Novapet from wTe Corp. The transaction involves a total investment of $200 million.
As a result of the acquisition, Evergreen is now one of North America’s three largest producers of food grade recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET), with an annual capacity of more than 147 million lbs. (approximately 67 thousand tonnes, up from 40 million lbs. just one year ago.
The recycler has also substantially increased he number of post-consumer PET bottles it collects and recycles. In January 2021, Evergreen recycled about 2 billion PET bottles a year; it now processes some 11.6 billion PET bottles annually at four locations across North America: the original facility in Clyde, Ohio; Albany, New York; Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada; and Riverside, California, which was acquired from CarbonLite in May 2021. Moving with the times, the company has also invested AI-enabled robots that sort PET bottles at speeds up to three times faster and at higher accuracy than manual sorting.
Recycled PET is in high demand as companies are increasingly seeking to incorporate recycled content into their packaging and other products, and this exponential growth is a direct response to this trend.
“The world has reached a tipping point where recycling and the use of recycled content aren’t just ‘nice’ to do—consumers and companies agree we have to do these things to lessen our impact on the environment,” said Evergreen General Manager Greg Johnson.
“As a plastics recycler and producer of rPET for more than two decades, Evergreen has the expertise to help customers close the loop on PET plastic. Now, with these strategic acquisitions and expansion, we have the volume to really make an impact.”
A recent report published by the National Association for PET Container Resources found a 10 percent increase in end-use demand of rPET in 2020 with the food and beverage category as the fastest growing category, increasing 36 percent from 2019 to 2020.
“Increasing the use of post-consumer recycled material in our bottles is a top priority of our industry,” said Megan Daum, American Beverage’s Vice President of Sustainability.
Acquisitions are not the only growth path Evergreen is pursuing. The recycler has also announced a major expansion at Clyde, adding a 54,000-square-foot building to its existing 238,000-square-foot facility. The addition will house four high-volume, food grade rPET manufacturing lines, boosting the company’s annual rPET capacity to 217 million lbs, about 98429 tonnes. The expansion is due to be competed in June 2022.