PWP to host ribbon-cutting ceremony to officially open new in-house recycling center

PWP Industries is set to open an 80,000-square-foot in-house plastics recycling facility at a special ribbon-cutting ceremony to be held on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 in Davisville, W. Va., said PWP Industries Chairman & CEO Leon Farahnik. The new recycling center will be one of the first for a thermoforming company. PWP is working with Coca-Cola Recycling LLC of Atlanta to convert post-consumer polyethyelene terephthalate, or PETE, bottles into Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-compliant resin for food grade-suitable material.   Gov. Joe Manchin and state Sen. Karen L. Facemyer, president of the Polymer Alliance Zone, Inc., will speak, along with Mr. Farahnik, at the opening festivities which, will include a ribbon cutting ceremony, tours of the facility and a catered luncheon. According to Farahnik, the first phase of the PWP project is estimated to have an annual capacity to recycle 40 million pounds of recycled PET flake and, in the process, cut annual emission of 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide and reduce annual energy requirements by 398 million kilowatt hours. Manufacturing of post-consumer-resin PET uses about two-thirds less energy than production of virgin PET.Coca-Cola Recycling will be the primary supplier of recycled PET flake that PWP will use as FDA-compliant resin for the production of food packaging. The limited liability company is a subsidiary of publicly traded Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., the largest bottler of Coca-Cola products. “PWP is making the investment to be ahead of the curve for recycled material in thermoformed packages,” said Farahnik. “We foresee the future, and we’re a firm believer that recycling will have to be part of the program. Our customers will also benefit from our investment in this facility because we’ll have a constant, guaranteed supply of material in a market that continues to increase in demand.”