TROY, ALA. - KW Plastics Recycling Division has moved to bring its post-consumer high density polyethylene pelletizing capacity up to its washing capacity for scrap. The company, based in Troy, has added two extrusion lines to the four it operates 24 hours per day at its Troy plant. This boosts pelletizing capacity to the 240 million-pound-per-year capacity of the company's washing lines.
Arthur Ferguson, general manager for recycling, said the pelletizing expansion, consisting of one 6-inch and one 8-inch extruder, positions KW as one of the largest HDPE recyclers in North America. The site's other extruders also are 6- and 8-inch.
The company also added 20,000 square feet of space to its Troy facility for warehouse use, along with two 56-foot-by-115-foot storage silos.
``We needed space to house our flake,'' Ferguson said. ``We added the extruders because we could not pelletize as much as we could wash. This should bring the two processes up even.''
According to Ferguson, the new extruders will be used primarily to compound new, special HDPE blends developed by the company's research department.
KW recycles both blow molding and injection-grade HDPE, and does custom tolling and compounding for customers, he said. The company is also a large recycler of post-industrial and post-consumer polypropylene.
