ROMEOVILLE, ILL. (Aug. 30, 8:50 a.m. ET) — After engaging in the seemingly “non-glamorous” plastics scrap trading and recycling business for 12 years, Romeoville-based Parc Corp. has reached a breakthrough.
The privately owned company now is directly working with several well-known global consumer brands' manufacturing plants in China, supplying post-consumer plastic produced by Parc's China operation, founder and President Kathy Xuan told Plastics News.
“These multinational companies have been searching for years to secure steady and reliable supply of quality, post-consumer resin for their factories in China. They were excited and relieved to find Parc to be their exclusive supplier.”
One client, a major American personal care brand, used to source recycled resin from factories in the United States and Mexico.
The automated sorting process commonly used by U.S. recyclers results in higher yield loss than manual sorting used in China. Ultimately, though, North American recyclers suffered because their prices were higher than prices for virgin resin.
After switching to source locally for its plant in China through Parc, the company now hopes to supply the same recycled resin to other plants in Europe and South America. Xuan said the demand is greater than the available supply.
Parc also is helping several global computer OEMs to use recycle polycarbonate/ABS from computer housings.
“We make sure the recycled materials are of the same properties as virgin resin,” she said.
Xuan said she found the right market niche at the right time. Global consumers are driving multinational OEMs to increase the use of post-consumer content in new products — many of them made in China. However, it is challenging for these companies to find the right supplier. Despite the large number of small plastic recyclers China, few are prepared to provide the products and services a global manufacturer would expect.
Opportunity favors the prepared mind, Xuan said. She made the right — but not easy — decision to continue investing through the recession.
“I remember, around the Chinese New Year in 2009, there was basically no work to do at our Qingdao factory. But we kept the place running and kept everyone on the payroll, which is paying back,” she said.
When market demand returned, Parc was ready and quick to take a larger role in the industry.
Parc's success in China with multinational customers is also bringing expansion to its U.S. headquarters. The company recently purchased the 120,000-sqaure-foot warehouse, which it had been renting, and added 10 employees during the last two and half years.
Already one of the leading exporters in the state of Illinois, Parc expects to continue to grow the volume of plastics scrap it ships to China.
“We've made our business an important element of the global sustainability movement. We upgrade the technology, increase the utilized value of plastics scrap, and improve the image of plastics recycling perceived by consumers and the general public. We feel better about what we do than ever before,” Xuan said.
Parc will attend the Corporate Waste and Recycling Conference September 27-29 in Orlando, Fla.
