One of America’s largest glass processors has closed its Northeast outpost.
The Camden, New Jersey facility of California-based eCullet has not been operating “for some time,” a recent court document states. Sued by its Camden landlord for leaving behind “vast quantities of trash” at the location, eCullet says it is now “negotiating with a potential buyer for the equipment at the Camden Property and other properties” to finance the cleanup.
It is unclear whether any of the company’s other properties – with two in California and additional hubs in St. Paul, Minnesota and Portland, Oregon – have closed or will close in the near future. The company’s lawyer, Jason Halper, and president and CEO, Craig London, did not return requests for comment.
Melinda Beer with CalRecycle told Resource Recycling, “I don’t have anything to report,” with regard to the two California sites of eCullet.
The firm has been a proponent of “glass-to-glass,” or “bottle-to-bottle,” recycling and was able to secure as much as $38 million in investments back in 2011. Historically, recycling old bottles into new ones has been time-intensive, complicated and costly, but eCullet has sought to push forward color sortation technology.
If the Camden equipment sale goes through, the company plans to put roughly $700,000 toward removing 20,000 tons of material it has amassed at its Camden site. In the court document, Halper stated removal charges are expected to cost $35 per ton.
The landlord lawsuit filed against eCullet was remanded to a lower New Jersey court earlier this month.
