PET recycler Verdeco moving headquarters to South Carolina

Verdeco Recycling Inc. is creating 90 million pounds of new annual recycled PET capacity in South Carolina through a project that has the ability to double over time.

The PET recycler is putting the finishing touches on a 217,000-square-foot facility in Greenville that will open with two recycling lines to transform hot-washed PET flake into new pellets. Those pellets will then be sold to customers in the cosmetics, health care, beverage and packaging segments.

Verdeco, which has been working on the new site for about 18 months, already operates similar locations in South Gate, Calif., and Terre Haute, Ind., with a combined capacity of about 120 million pounds.

Verdeco said a variety of considerations went into selecting South Carolina for the new facility, including customer location as well as logistics needed to bring in flake from suppliers.

The location gives Verdeco expanded coverage in not only the Southeast but also elsewhere along the East Coast and Canada, CEO Rob Bindner said.

Construction includes manufacturing space as well as offices and nearly 3,700 square feet dedicated to research and development, he said.

“The project is an opportunity for our current customers as well as our future customers to have a very strategic partner that is focused on innovation. When you think about the sustainably space in total it would be very difficult for the customers within this space to reach their sustainability goals just purely based on feedstock,” Bindner said.

“We feel that we serve a very important strategic niche where we have the ability to develop customized formulations and have the ability to influence performance and aesthetic attributes,” he said. “We really look at it as an innovation center of excellence.”

“This facility will provide that environment for collaborative brainstorming and really pushing the boundaries of what can be achievable in the [recycled PET] space,” the CEO said.

Verdeco also is moving the company’s corporate headquarters from California, where space is limited, to the new facility.

The company expects to be finished with construction around June 1 and begin production around July 1. About 60 people will work at the site initially, and that number could double if the company decides to install two more recycling lines in the future. Production capacity would increase to 180 million pounds per year if those additional lines are created.

“We procure hot wash flake from approximately 20 different sources from around the world, which gives us a very robust supply chain,” Bindner said. “We’re not just reliant on one or two suppliers of feedstock.”

About 70 to 80 percent of the feedstock at the California plant comes from domestic suppliers. The CEO anticipates 50 to 60 percent of the incoming flake at the new facility will come from within the United States, an amount similar to what’s consumed in Indiana.

Verdeco was acquired by  investment firm Cudos Group of Vienna, Austria, in 2020. “I would say the ownership from the very beginning was focused on significant expansion,” Bindner said. That could eventually include locations outside of the United States.