Plastics Recycler Receives Loan to Grow

St. Jude Polymer, a Pennsylvania plastics recycler recently received a low interest loan from the United States Department of Agriculture. The loan, from the USDA’s Rural Development Guaranteed Business and Industry Loan, totals about $1.6 million.

The money will be used to pay off earlier bank debt, as well as assist in the construction of a new addition to the company’s facility in Frackville, PA. That expansion will add around 14,000 square feet to the facility.

The company hopes to have the expansion complete by the middle of August, said Stephen Babinchak, Sr., president of the company.

The company handles both PET and HDPE plastics.

The company also is looking to strengthen its collection of materials to allow the company to pull from as many as 30 counties in the state.

Babinchak notes that the company has been working with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for the past four years on a system that would allow for more economical collection of plastics. Through a V-quip system large blue containers used for collecting plastics could be both tipped into a vehicle and crushed, allowing for the truck to increase the amount of plastics it could handle before cubing out.

Along with the loan from the USDA, announced June 18, the company received a $750,000 performance loan for equipment from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development this past January, which will improve the company's efficiency.

An estimated $560,000 from the 20-year USDA loan will help construct a 13,500 square-foot addition to the company's current facility containing a cement bin that will hold up to 60,000 pounds of flattened plastic.