Plastic scrap: Expanding stateside

When Kathy Xuan established PARC Corp. in the United States in 1996, China was just beginning to ramp up its buying of secondary materials, and “Operation Green Fence” and “National Sword” were not yet phrases in the lexicon of scrap processors. Things have changed considerably since that time for the company, which purchases plastic scrap from postindustrial and postconsumer sources, shipping them to China for further processing into pellets at its own facility in Qingdao, China, or at partner facilities.

The commodity super cycle fueled by China’s demand has wound down, and the country’s central government has introduced two separate policies in less than five years designed to improve the quality of recyclables that are entering China. Read more in a Recycling Today feature article about how these policies are changing the way Parc Corp. handles materials and conducts its business.