Reprocessor and recycler ACI Plastics Inc. is bringing its new Nebraska operation up to capacity to support its growing medical products business.
The Flint, Mich., private company is running the Columbus, Neb., plant three shifts a day for five days a week with 15 employees. The 55,000-square-foot plant opened in September.
The Columbus facility has three grinders in operation recycling scrap medical products such as post-industrial syringes, some of which contain saline solution. One of the grinders is a model capable of handling wet waste. ACI also recycles medical scrap at its Tempe, Ariz., location. Syringes are often molded from polypropylene.
ACI is in the process of relocating its South Carolina operation. Last fall it bought a 90,000-square-foot building in Westminster to house operations now performed in Anderson. ACI expects to be fully moved into Westminster by the end of March. Westminster will begin with grinding operations, but will add extrusion and multilayer separation equipment before the end of 2015,
ACI has expertise in recycling multilayer scrap such as auto instrument panels.
ACI occupies about 400,000 square feet in its five current plants, which in total employ more than 100. The company projects its sales will grow to the $30 million mark in 2015. ACI President Scott Melton said in a news release that the firm will add equipment to handle new business in the first half of this year.
“We have been adding staff in Flint to be trained and then relocated to our other locations,” noted ACI Chief Operating Officer Bill McCaffrey. “We continue to look for talented people that can take the business to the next level.”