Evergreen to close Ohio, New York rPET facilities

Evergreen Recycling, a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycler headquartered in Clyde, Ohio, will soon close that facility along with another in Albany, New York, according to a Feb. 24 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filed in Ohio.

A local media report reviewing the filing says the plant closure in Clyde will result in 165 layoffs. Combined, the two affected plants employ 247 people, but exact closure dates were not listed.

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Evergreen operates a third facility in Amherst, Nova Scotia, but its status is currently unknown.

In its WARN, the company cites recent actions taken by its “revolving credit facility lender” as the reason for shuttering the plants. Evergreen says the lender “unexpectedly swept all of the company’s cash,” Feb. 13, even though it claims to have had “several going-concern bidders” who had conducted diligence, including one which was expected to provide nonbinding letters of intent to purchase the company. Then, on Feb. 17, the lender advised Evergreen that it intended to take control of its working capital assets and cease funding Evergreen, prompting the immediate halt of operations.

Evergreen, considered among the three largest rPET producers in North America, has faced adversity dating back to February of last year when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed its PET wash line in Riverside, California.

According to the company’s website, it processes more than 4 billion postconsumer PET bottles per year and has a nameplate capacity of 125 million pounds. It describes itself as the “preferred supplier” of food- and nonfood-grade rPET—in pellet and flake form—to global brands and packaging companies.

Evergreen was founded in 1998 as a PET recycling-focused division of Mentor, Ohio-based Greenbridge, and expanded from its lone location in Clyde to four across North America. Beginning in 2021, Evergreen acquired three facilities, including UltrePET in Albany, CarbonLite in Riverside and Novapet in Nova Scotia.

In 2022, with the aid of investment from the American Beverage Association and the Ohio Beverage Association in partnership with New York-based Closed Loop Partners, Evergreen completed a $22 million expansion of the Clyde location that significantly increased its processing capacity.