Montreal-based packaging firm TC Transcontinental Packaging has acquired the assets of Enviroplast Inc., a plastics recycler based in Quebec.
The equipment will be used by TC Transcontinental to convert plastic waste into plastic granules. The material will be sourced from sorting facilities, commercial, industrial and agricultural areas.
TC Transcontinental purchased the assets and is looking to hire nine employees to start operations and continue to build, Mélanie Montplaisir, a spokeswoman for the company, said in an email to Plastics News.
"At term, we hope to have a team of approximately 50 employees," she said.
Enviroplast had suspended its activities in March and was under protection from creditors since November 2019, she said.
The company will begin the new operations starting with bags, shrink wraps, overwrap and nonfood bags for household and consumer products, Montplaisir said.
"We are also working in close collaboration with our clients to develop packages that meet their functional and performance requirements, and allow them to achieve their own sustainability objectives including direct food contact products," she said.
Last fall, TC Transcontinental launched a bag made of 100 percent recycled plastic that was still completely recyclable. The bag was used to distribute door-to-door flyers in Quebec.
The equipment will be used to vertically integrate the recycling of plastics in TC Transcontinental's packaging production chain in North and Latin America, Sylvain Levert, senior vice president of the company's recycling group, which was created in February, said in a news release.
"The circular economy is the way of the future," he said. "We are proud of this first step and are counting on the collaboration of public and private stakeholders to meet the plastic recycling challenge and to promote the creation in Quebec of a center of expertise in the circular economy of plastics."
TC Transcontinental aims to offer eco-friendly packaging products that contain recycled plastic and to create and support a stable circular economy of recycled resin material.
The manufacturer wants to increase post consumer recycled content across its flexible plastic packaging products such as rollstock, bags and pouches, coextruded films, shrink films and coatings. It serves a variety of industries, including dairy, coffee, proteins, pet food, agriculture, confectionery, fresh supermarket and frozen foods.
The company's aim is in accordance with objectives of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's New Plastics Economy Global Commitment.
TC Transcontinental has more than 8,700 employees based in Canada, the U.S. and Latin America. It ranked No. 32 on the most recent Plastics News ranking of North American film and sheet makers and had sales of an estimated $240 million in the region.