Dive Brief:
- Major plastic reclaimer Entropex closed on July 14 after its bank decided to call a loan. The company will be put up for sale by a court-appointed receiver.
- Entropex specializes in sorting and recycling non-bottle rigid resin plastics. It produced recycled resins and compounds to be used in various products.
- The company employed 155 people at its 180,000-square-foot facility in Sarnia, Ontario and the majority of them have already been laid off.
Dive Insight:
According to the company's website, Entropex has operated since 1978 and was North America's eighth-largest post-consumer plastics recycling company. In 2013, the company won an Innovation in Plastics Recycling Award from the American Chemistry Council for its RigidReclaim process. At the time, ACC said that more than 70% of plastics handled in that process were not recyclable through standard methods.
In 2009, Entropex received $6.3 million in funding from Sustainable Development Technology Canada to create a demonstration facility for recovering mixed rigid plastics such as clam shells. Two years later, the company received an additional $4 million from the provincial government's Innovation Demonstration Fund to pilot another new recycling technology. It also ranked 13th among Plastics News' recent list of the largest North American plastics recyclers—processing 175 million pounds annually.
Yet the company said declining oil prices and tough competition made its financial situation untenable. This is a challenge faced by all sides of the waste industry which has hit some companies harder than others. President Keith Bechard told Plastics News that the receiver is considering buyers who could potentially restart the company, but as of now Entropex's fate is unknown.
