Recycle America Alliance LLC has opened a facility in Chicago that will use optical sorting technology to recycle 100 million pounds of recovered plastic containers annually.
The plant sorts containers by resin and color. It can identify polypropylene, high density polyethylene, PET and PVC bottles, processing 15,000-17,000 pounds of containers per hour.
Recycle America opened a similar facility in Raleigh, N.C., in 2003. Together, the Chicago and Raleigh plants can handle recovered plastic containers from 60 percent of the United States.
``The commissioning of these plants by RAA has largely been in direct response to industry demand,'' said Steve Edelson, RAA director of nonfiber recycling.
The firm invested in the plants to meet demand for recycled plastic from the bottle, plastic lumber, drainage pipe, polyester fiber, polyester carpet and lawn edging industries, Edelson said.