Dive Brief:
- Spartanburg, SC-based International Recycling Group (IRG) announced the development of a plastics recycling facility in Portage, IN.
- Those involved in the project are touting the facility as “the largest plastic recycling facility in the world.”
- The company plans to invest $70 million to renovate the space to suit their needs. The facility measures 575,000 square feet.
Dive Insight:
The company plans to process used plastics that can be recycled into one stream, while the non-recyclable plastics will be used as fuel for a blast furnace at ArcelorMittal, a nearby steel mill operation. The costs associated with the development of the steel mill is estimated at an additional $30 million.
“Our primary raw material is plastic scrap with little economic resale value which would otherwise end up landfilled or exported at heavily discounted value relative to the materials’s embedded energy content,” said IRG spokespeople in a statement.
