Los Angeles-based PreZero US completed its acquisition of Roplast Industries (Oroville, Calif.) in early March, taking another step toward its “primary business goal” of vertically integrating to “deliver closed loop solutions that support the circular economy,” the company announced in a release.
Roplast, founded in 1989, manufactures polyethylene film and bags, including packaging bags and mailers, wave-top and soft-loop grocery bags, and delivery and carry-out bags. The company occupied a niche by manufacturing reusable plastic bags that meet legislative requirements in California, Oregon, and New York through their integration of postconsumer recycled (PCR) content. California, where Roplast’s 130,000-square-foot manufacturing and corporate office is based, requires manufacturers include a minimum of 40% PCR in their plastic bags, among other requirements.
Roplast opened its own internal recycling facility, REvolve, in 2016. Through the facility, Roplast has partnered with retail and grocery stores to recover and process postconsumer film scrap into postconsumer resin pellet feedstock for bag production. Roplast’s current processing capacity is 30 million pounds per year, PreZero says.
Through its acquisition, PreZero plans to supply postconsumer resins that can serve as feedstock for Roplast’s production line. Within two years, PreZero aims to supply up to 15 million pounds of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) per year in the form of PCR content for film and bags, the company says.
Though PreZero US, a subsidiary of PreZero International (Neckarsulm, Germany), only entered the U.S. market in 2018, it has grown rapidly. Last year, the company invested $100 million in plastics recycling facilities in Jurupa Valley, Calif., and Westminster, S.C. The two facilities, which process film and mixed rigid plastic bales into LDPE, polypropylene, and high-density polyethylene resins, plan to soon reach a processing capacity of more than 160 million pounds per year.
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Image courtesy of PreZero US.
