Between its California PET recycling plant and its newly opened Tennessee one, bottled water company CG Roxane expects to produce about 39 million pounds of RPET this year, a company manager said.
CG Roxane, which owns the Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring Water brand, recently opened a PET recycling plant in Benton, Tenn. The plant is essentially a mirror of the plant that CG Roxane is operating in San Bernardino, Calif.
With both plants, which take in hot caustic washed flakes and produce RPET pellets for molding into bottles, CG Roxane is now aiming for 50% PCR water bottles nationwide.
Luke Genthe, special projects engineer at CG Roxane, told Plastics Recycling Update the company estimates it will produce 39 million pounds of RPET in 2023. “We’re working diligently to improve efficiencies on the lines in an effort to increase our recycled content,” he said.
CG Roxane is one of the beverage producers that achieved California’s mandate to use 15% PCR in bottles in 2022, a recent Plastics Recycling Update analysis of state data showed. Last year, the company used 33 million pounds of PET in California, 50% of that recycled PET. California law steps up the required percentage to 25% by 2025 and 50% by 2030.
CG Roxane’s plant in San Bernardino, which is in the Los Angeles area, allowed the company to produce 50% RPET bottles at its bottling plants in the California towns of Mt. Shasta and Olancha.
First announced two years ago, the Benton plant is intended to enable recycled-content bottles on the East Coast. The plant was originally scheduled to open within a year, but COVID-era supply chain disruptions for the building and production line delayed its opening, Genthe said.
Genthe noted that the plant uses Erema Vacunite extrusion technologies. He declined to disclose the capital investment associated with the Benton plant.
Along with the announcement of the Benton plant’s opening, CG Roxane unveiled a public education campaign called “Through the Loop.” The privately owned company also released several takeaways from a May 2023 survey on public attitudes toward recycling and recycled content.
