In a journey years in the making, PureCycle Technologies Inc. says recycled polypropylene pellets are now being produced at the company's solvent-based facility in Ohio.
PureCycle's plant in Ironton, Ohio, produced the "first run" of recycled resin from post-industrial plastic at a commercial scale on June 20, the company said.
CEO Dustin Olson called the production a "momentous achievement for all stakeholders who believed in us."
"With this major milestone complete, we have demonstrated that the fundamental technology works as expected, and at scale," he said in a statement. "This is another important step in our mission towards helping to solve the plastic waste crisis."
PureCycle now will work to demonstrate the company's process under various operating conditions using different PP feedstocks.
The company's plant, which cost about $361 million, is designed to ultimately produce 107 million pounds of recycled PP annually.
PureCycle uses solvent to strip away impurities in used PP, creating what the company brands as Ultra-Pure Recycled resin that mimics virgin material.
During an interview at the Ironton facility last month, Olson said the company was close to production, but that he was not going to rush the process while being so close to commercialization. "We're going to do it the right way. We're going to learn through it. We're going to grow through it. We're going to develop through it and then we'll end up with a plan," he said then.
PureCycle has been working to scale technology created by Procter & Gamble Co. for about six years, selecting a portion of a former Dow Inc. site in Ironton as the location of its first facility.
The company also is seeking to create a second, larger plant in Augusta, Ga., and has announced plans for sites in Belgium, Japan and South Korea.