Recycled PET company Evergreen Recycling is closing its operations in Clyde, Ohio, and Albany, New York, laying off 165 people.
According to local media, the company’s Feb. 24 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filing in Ohio said a revolving credit lender had “unexpectedly swept all of the Company’s cash” on Feb. 13, even as Evergreen was in talks with several potential buyers.
Then on Feb. 17 the lender told Evergreen it intended to seize the company’s assets and discontinue funding.
“The Revolving Credit Lender’s actions were unforeseeable and unexpected, and leave the Company with no option but to cease operations immediately,” the notification said. “We made every effort to avoid this outcome by actively seeking purchasers for the Company as a going concern, as outlined above. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in our efforts.”
Going-concern bidders intend to continue operating a company rather than liquidating its assets.
The company had a nameplate capacity of 125 million pounds/year (56,700 metric tons/year) of food-grade RPET pellet among three locations, including one in Nova Scotia, according to its website. The fate of the Canadian plant was unclear at press time. Attempts to reach Evergreen were unsuccessful.
In February 2025, Evergreen closed its PET wash line in Riverside, California, and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Later that year Blue Polymers, the joint venture between hauler Republic Services and distributor Ravago, bought the facility.
Last August Pete Keller, vice president of recycling and sustainability at Republic Services, told Plastics Recycling Update that the Riverside acquisition was a one-off deal. “It isn’t something that we’re today necessarily planning to scale nationally,” he said. “It was an opportunity to look at a company that was for sale, and the deal made sense to us, so we went ahead with it.”
In 2021, Evergreen began a $22 million expansion at the Ohio plant, and purchased the New York and Nova Scotia plants in early 2022.
