Leaders from revalyu Resources, Heraeus Group and the Development Authority of Bulloch County joined state and local officials to celebrate revalyu breaking ground on their first (polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling facility in America located at Gateway Regional Park in Statesboro, Ga. The company is investing over $200 million to build a plant capable of recycling a year of 200 million lbs. (90,000 metric tons) of post-consumer PET plastic.
Customer applications have shown that the quality of recycled PET from plastic bottles is equivalent to virgin PET and can be used as a direct replacement. Once converted into high-quality recycled PET, revalyu’s rPET chips can produce any kind of sustainable PET product. It is mostly used in the textile industry for applications such as seamless knitting, weaving, denim, automotive, furniture or technical textiles.
revalyu has recycled over 6 billion bottles in India. Due to its recycling process based on glycolysis, the quality of revalyu’s rPET (recycled PET) products enables its customers to replace conventional oil-based PET with revalyu’s more sustainable rPET. Compared to conventional PET, revalyu’s rPET is produced using 75% less water and 91% less energy and saves around 0.7 barrels of oil and 0.2 cubic meters of landfill space per 2000 pounds of PET recycled.
According to Jan van Kisfeld, managing director of revalyu, the company plans to recycle the equivalent of 25 million plastic bottles per day at its Georgia facility. He adds, "Our first plant in the U.S. is a very important step for the global expansion of our company. Our existing and future U.S. customers have a huge demand for our 100% recycled pellets, which are equivalent in quality to conventional oil-based PET pellets. This advanced recycling plant will serve our customers directly from the U.S., enabling quicker transportation time, lower cost and a smaller CO2 footprint.”
Construction is expected to be complete in Q3 2025. Once complete, the facility will employ 71 people in Phase One and another 50 people in Phase Two, for a total of 121 jobs.