Entropex is forced to close

(Photo courtesy of the Stellio Engineers)

Entropex, a Sarnia, Ontario-based plastics recycling company, has closed down and laid off close to 160 employees. The company cites difficult market conditions as the reason for shuttering the facility.

MNP Ltd., the court-appointed receiver for Entropex, says it will seek a buyer for the plastics recycling company that will reopen the plant. According to the Sarnia Observer, the process to market and sell the company could take four to six weeks. The news report adds that the company closed down after banks called in loans they had made to the company.

According to a news release issued by Entropex, it had been struggling for several months with financial challenges caused by declining oil prices and a competitive business environment.

The release says the company had worked to reduce expenses but the cost of operating remained “prohibitively high and unsustainable.”

While Entropex has struggled over the past several years with challenging markets, it had generated a significant amount of attention from government entities and industry organizations. The company had received sizable funding from a number of Canadian organizations to demonstrate its ability to recycle hard-to-recycle plastics. Entropex was one of 16 companies to receive funding from the Canada’s federally funded Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) program, which is tasked with growing innovative technologies in Canada.

Several years ago the company also received recognition from the American Chemistry Council (ACC), Washington, which recognized Entropex with one of three Innovation in Plastics Recycling Awards in 2013. The ACC recognized Entropex for creating its RigidReclaim technology, which recovers nonbottle plastic containers. The technology integrates plastics sorting, cleaning and processing to upgrade the quality of recycled mixed plastics.

Entropex is a privately owned Canadian company involved in the reprocessing of postindustrial and postconsumer plastics. Entropex was involved in the reprocessing of postindustrial and postconsumer polyethylene and polypropylene for a variety of consumer and industrial applications. At its peak Entropex was ranked as the eighth largest postconsumer recycler and the 18th largest plastic recycler in North America, the company claims on its website.