Two units of Westlake Corp. are working together to reduce waste and the firm's environmental impact.
Westlake Global Compounds, a leading provider of PVC compounds, and industrial PVC recycler Westlake Dimex are pooling their efforts in sustainability, officials with Houston-based Westlake said in a news release.
The partnership will focus on reprocessing Westlake Global Compounds' materials and toll processing services offered by Westlake Dimex, including grinding, shredding, blending and compounding.
Westlake Dimex has nine GreenCircle Certified Recycled Content certifications, covering compounds, landscape and matting products. GreenCircle, an independent third-party which verifies sustainability claims, certified three Westlake Dimex compounds, which Westlake Global Compounds will market to potential customers.
Westlake Dimex General Manager Andy Antil said his unit "is continually focused on finding new ways to contribute to the circular economy."
"Our compounding operation helps close the loop by utilizing post-industrial and post-consumer scrap to avoid burdening landfills by processing these waste materials into new compounds," he added.
Westlake Global Compounds has plants in the U.S., China, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain and Vietnam, as well as a stabilizer plant in Japan, eight application labs worldwide and a research facility in France.
Dimex was founded in 1991 and acquired by Westlake in 2021. The business is a North American manufacturer of recycled PVC, thermoplastic elastomers/thermoplastic vulcanizates and thermoplastic olefin compounds, in addition to other consumer and professional home and landscape products.
Westlake Dimex has annual processing capacity of 100 million pounds of recycled materials in Marietta, Ohio.
Westlake has annual sales of more than $15 billion. In addition to compounding and recycling, the firm is a major supplier of PVC resin and a major producer of PVC siding, windows, doors, fencing, decks, railing and corrugated pipe.