SHELBY, N.C. - A joint venture recycling company in North Carolina is opening a new facility in Shelby to grind, densify and extrude PET, polypropylene and other scrap. Modern Densifying Inc. of Fletcher, N.C., will move from its present 28,000-square-foot plant into a $1 million, 65,000-square-foot facility in Shelby by June, according to Hank Ball, chief executive officer.
The 3-year-old company is a joint venture of Ball's Eastern Plastics Co. Inc., a scrap feedstock and recycled pellet broker and distributor based in Char-lotte, N.C., and Morgan and Co., a Shelby-based post-industrial plastic grinder.
Capacity will increase from 25 million pounds annually to about 50 million pounds, Ball said, primarily in the form of scrap PET and PP batting, monofilament yarn, and film. The post-industrial scrap is densified into ``popcorn,'' and extruded for use in molding, compounding and fiber fill.
Although the plant's capacity for both densifying and extruding will be doubled in the new location, Ball declined to discuss the exact machinery configuration it will have.
``We had a very good relationship with Morgan and Co. over the years,'' Ball said. ``They did some of the grinding for us, so three years ago we decided to join, and set up Modern Densifying.''
He said the company will stick primarily to using post-industrial materials, because it has limited washing capabilities.
``We don't have wash lines capable of handling post-consumer bottles or anything,'' Ball said. ``But we can wash the flake and we do toll grinding.''
