Demand prompts LaVergne to expand
ANJOU, QUEBEC - PET recycler and compounder LaVergne Groupe is adding a third twin-screw extrusion line and more materials-handling equipment to satisfy increased demand, primarily for fiberglass-filled, recycled PET resins for the automotive market.
The new equipment will boost LaVergne's capacity by about 20 million pounds a year at its Anjou headquarters, and give it more than 100 million pounds of total capacity, said Larry Koester, vice president of marketing and sales. The line will be operating by year-end.
``This is where the growth in our business is, in the higher-tech resins,'' he said.
The company is spending about US$5 million on the extrusion line, and US$2 million on related improvements in materials handling, including a bank of eight silos, Koester said.
In particular, the company is seeing growing demand for its recycled PET in grille-opening retainers, headlamp retainers, cosmetic parts and some truck window frames, he said.
The expansion will give the firm six lines total - three single-screw and three twin-screw lines.
The company did about US$50 million in sales last year, and projects US$65 million this year, Koester said.
Fla. resin recycler opens W.Va. facility
TAMPA, FLA. - Commercial Plastics Recycling Inc. has opened a 50,000-square-foot facility in Ravenswood, W.Va., where it will handle mainly scrap from nearby resin manufacturers, including GE Plastics and Gruppo Mossi & Ghisolfi, the former Shell PET plant.
CPR, based in Tampa, is thinking of investing $3 million in several solid-stating machines in West Virginia, said President Ben Benvenuti. He said that while the economy has weakened since the company committed to the new West Virginia plant, business has improved and the company has returned to profitability in the past few months.
The $1.8 million facility, in the state's Polymer Alliance Zone, employs seven and performs grinding, screening and repacking.