Recycling market veteran Tamsin Ettefagh has joined polypropylene recycler PureCycle Technologies LLC as vice president of industry relations.
Ettefagh has more than 30 years of industry experience. During her career, she's implemented recycling collection programs, run a recycling facility, purchased raw materials and sold recycled resins, officials with Orlando, Fla.-based PureCycle said in a Feb. 8 news release.
Prior to joining PureCycle, Ettefagh spent more than 20 years at recycling firm Envision Plastics LLC of Reidsville, N.C. She's also worked as a consultant in plastics recycling, focusing on strategy and implementation to advancements in process, primarily in polyolefins.
Ettefagh also has been a frequent speaker at conferences and webinars and has served on several boards, including the Sustainable Packaging Coalition from 2019-20. In addition, she served as treasurer of the Association of Plastic Recyclers for 14 years.
In 2020, Ettefagh was named to Plastics News' Women Breaking the Mold list. She told PN at the time that the plastics industry "is never boring and there's lots of work to be done."
"Plastics has aided so many advancements," she added. "If we take care of the side effects of waste going forward, we will have many more advancements to bring to the world."
PureCycle is a PP recycler that was acquired in November by investment banks Roth Capital Partners LLC and Craig Hallum Capital Group LLC. They plan to take the firm public this year.
PureCycle plans to build a PP recycling plant with more than 100 million pounds of annual capacity in Ironton, Ohio. The firm expects to have more than 1.2 billion pounds of capacity in place in the next five years.
The recycling technology used by PureCycle was developed by Procter & Gamble Co. It uses a solvent-based purification process that officials said can return waste PP into virgin-like material and can overcome odor and other traditional challenges with mechanical recycling of PP.