KLEINOSTHEIM – In the initial phase of a strategic expansion into the USA, German-headquartered revalyu is to invest $50 million in a new plant in Statesboro, Georgia, with commissioning planned for 2024.
The company, formerly known as perPETual Global Technologies, officially launched in April 2022, having built and commercialised the world’s first glycolysis PET recycling plant in Nashik, India, which currently employs over 300 people and has already recycled over six billion bottles.
In May 2022, Germany’s Heraeus Group, a global Fortune 500 family-owned company, acquired a major stake in revalyu and is supporting its expansion plans.
The cost-effective revalyu recycling process extracts impurities efficiently and delivers recycled PET of the highest purity. The process uses 91% less energy and 67% less water than conventional polyester processes. At present the company sells recycled PET pellets and filament yarns to over 60 repeat customers in over 15 countries.
The new 43-acre plant in Statesboro will employ approximately 70 people and when the first phase is completed, will be able to recycle and process over 225,000 pounds per day of used PET waste into sustainable PET polymers (esters) and rPET chips. In a further planned expansion, the plant will expand to a daily capacity of up to 450,000 pounds.
Customer applications have shown that the quality of recycled PET from plastic bottles is equivalent to that of virgin PET and can be used as a direct replacement. Once converted into high quality recycled PET, revalyu’s rPET chips can be used to produce any kind of sustainable PET product. Currently, it is mostly used in the textile industry for applications including seamless knitting, weaving, denim and nonwovens in industries including automotive, furniture and technical textiles.
“We thank all our US customers, partners and the Statesboro community for their support, trust, and confidence in us,” said managing director Jan van Kisfeld. “Expanding into the US is an important milestone for our global expansion strategy. It brings us closer to our target of recycling more than two million pounds of used PET bottles per day by 2026.
“The recycling process is unique and delivers the world’s cleanest, highest quality and most sustainable polyester products to our customers. We have commercialised a breakthrough and environmentally sustainable technology and revalyu will become the leading global brand for recycling polyester. We continue to seek strong partners globally who wish to work with us on the global roll out of this technology.”
