URRC Takes Stake in IRG

The plastics recycling firm United Resource Recovery Corp., based in Spartanburg, S.C., has taken a stake in International Recycling Group LLC (IRG), New York, N.Y.

IRG, a subsidiary of GreenSteel LLC, is pursuing a goal of 100-percent utilization of plastic scrap by separating PET, HDPE and other plastics from non-recyclable plastic scrap streams. The company would convert the non-recyclable portion into a reducing agent for the steel industry.

According to a release, the use of economically non-recyclable plastic scrap as a reducing agent for the steel industry eliminates landfilling of end-of-life plastics, reduces coal mining, lowers greenhouse gas emissions and drives higher recovery rates of recyclable plastics for conversion back into finished products.

IRG’s partnership with URRC provides IRG with access to URRC’s proprietary UnPET food-grade PET recycling technology. The arrangement will allow IRG to provide a home for tens of millions of pounds of sorted recycled PET plastic it expects to process at its future PolyCoke facilities.

IRG is currently developing plants dedicated to manufacturing PolyCoke by sourcing plastic scrap that cannot be economically recycled and would otherwise enter the landfill. According to a spokesman for IRG, the company hopes to have its first facility built in the Midwest.

URRC has developed patented and proprietary technologies for plastics recycling. The company has licensed the technology for client processes in eight locations around the world.