By the numbers
Budget to build flagship Ironton, Ohio facility: $317M
Up $10 million due to inflation, supply chain issues and other factors
PP procured for Augusta facility: 301M pounds
The “polypropylene waste” procurement meant for the Georgia facility is represented in letters of intent
- Financial picture: Polypropylene recycler PureCycle Technologies is in the process of building out its key locations and is not yet earning revenue. The company uses solvents to treat recovered PP, making it into a virgin-like product. During its Nov. 10 conference call, Chief Financial Officer Larry Somma said “it has been a very challenging market to raise debt capital” for its planned Augusta, Georgia facility and several East Coast preprocessing centers due to recent economic headwinds. However, “a number of options that are being evaluated that give us confidence in our ability to raise the necessary capital.”
- Flagship facility opening delays: Work on the company's first recycling facility in Ironton, Ohio, is nearing completion, but “unexpected delays” in equipment deliveries has pushed back opening to the first quarter of 2023, CEO Dustin Olson said. The budget for the facility has also increased $10 million to approximately $317 million, mainly due to inflation, supply chain issues amid COVID-19 and transportation issues on the Mississippi River.
- Augusta plant funding: PureCycle’s Augusta, Georgia, facility is on target to be mechanically complete and begin ramping up operations in the second half of 2024. However, the company has not yet secured all the financing it needs to complete the project. It faces a Dec. 31 funding deadline put in place by the Augusta Economic Development Corp., which owns the land, Plastic News reported.
- Environmental justice opposition: The company’s planned PP collection and preparation facility in Winter Garden, Florida, is facing local environmental justice opposition that has prompted PureCycle to begin “an evaluation of alternative sites in Central Florida,” the company said in the earnings release. Environmentalists and residents sent the company a letter in September asking PureCycle to leave the area, saying the company ignored concerns that the facility would bring pollution, noise and truck traffic to their “historically Black, economically disadvantaged community under the guise of creating a ‘sustainable’ and ‘circular’ economy.” The facility has some equipment installed but does not yet have water and sewer permits.
- Feedstock updates: PureCycle's feedstock supply pipeline comes from post-consumer non-curbside, post-consumer curbside, and post-industrial sources, the company said. During the third quarter, PureCycle added the Cincinnati Bengals and the Orlando Magic to its list of partnerships to recycle plastic generated during professional sporting events. Meanwhile, the company has reached multi-year offtake agreements for its Augusta facility’s purification line, and as of the third quarter that facility is now 111% contracted, Olson said. However, a feedstock supplier and offtake customer of the Ironton facility has asked to end its contract, prompting PureCycle to take steps to replace that customer with a different feedstock commitment, Olson said.
- Other investments: PureCycle has finalized a joint venture agreement with SK geo centric to develop a PP purification facility in Ulsan, South Korea. That facility is expected to have a 130 million pound annual capacity and start construction in 2023. PureCycle also recently announced a partnership with Milliken & Co., to create what the company says is the “first fully sustainable, odorless concentrate for the recycled PP resin marketplace.”
