Plastic Revolutions expands processing capabilities

Plastic Revolutions, Reidsville, North Carolina, has added equipment to process mixed rigid plastics. Since February 2015 the company says has been processing 5 tons of this material per hour.

When a European company needed 20 million to 30 million pounds of ground mixed plastics per year for its U.S. operations, Plastic Revolutions decided to expand its processing capabilities to fulfil this need, adding a processing line from Vecoplan LLC, Archdale, North Carolina.  

Plastic Revolutions Plant Manager Dee Pyrtle and Plant Engineer Mike Blackwell helped to design the line, which includes conveyors capable of transporting entire bales through the process and a shredder capable of handling metals.

The shredder reduces incoming material into 2-inch flakes. The material travels by conveyor to a magnet system, which extracts ferrous metal, and then to an eddy current, which removes nonferrous metals. A conveyor then transports the plastic to a traditional grinder.

“This processing line will allow us to take more of the lower-grade mixed rigid bales than some of our competitors,” says Plastic Revolutions Vice President and General Manager Ed Handy. “It is good plastic if you can process it.”

John Hagan founded Plastic Revolutions in 1991. In the early 2000s, he began installing the company’s own processing equipment prototypes in the plastics washing line. Currently, Plastic Revolutions operates two washing lines able to handle 84 million pounds per year, six granulating lines with 110 million pounds of capacity per year and two extrusion pelletizing lines with 30 million pounds of capacity per year.

The company’s 300,000-square-foot Reidsville facility also operates a wastewater pretreatment system designed to clean and recycle water used in the washing process.