William Barnet & Son, Albis Plastic form joint venture

William Barnet & Son, headquartered in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Albis Plastic, Hamburg, Germany, have formed a joint venture called Albis Barnet Polymers that will recycle, repelletize and market postindustrial plastics for the two companies. The company also will use the collected material in the compounding of Altech Eco products.

Albis Barnet Polymers will be in Duncan, South Carolina. Albis also will construct a production facility for engineering compounds at the joint venture site, which will initially handle 15,000 tons per year. Completion on the facility is planned for the second quarter of 2017, the company says.

Under terms of the joint venture, Albis Plastic will take over Barnet Europe’s existing polymer business, including the company’s production sites in Obernburg, Germany, and in Humenné, Slovakia.

Albis and Barnet have invested in recycling technology, and the two companies say they expect to offer sustainable compounds of near to prime quality.

“The joint venture unites the strengths of both partner companies -- a direct market access point to postindustrial raw material qualities, repelletizing expertise, as well as compounding and product development competence," says Philip Krahn, CEO of Albis Plastic. "This concept will give us a competitive edge that we will implement and take advantage of globally to serve our customers even better in the future."

Through these investments, Albis will increase its global compounding and repelletization production capacity by 60,000 tons per year. The acquisitions in Europe will add 15,000 tons per year. In North America, the joint venture will add 30,000 tons per year, with an additional 15,000 tons coming from investments at the manufacturing site in Duncan.

Barnet is a global manufacturing, recycling and trading company, specializing in a wide range of fibers, polymers and yarns.

Albis Plastic is involved in the distribution and compounding of technical thermoplastics.