Teijin, Partner To Recycle Polyester

Teijin and partner, Jinggong Holding Group, plan to invest about $75 million to build a polyester fiber recycling facility in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, China. Teijin will own 49% of the venture, and its partner will own the balance. The venture, Zhejiang Jiaren New Materials, plans to use Teijin’s Eco Circle closed-loop recycling system to depolymerize fiber waste from local polyester fiber makers into dimethyl terephthalate. The DMT will then be repolymerized and extruded into new polyester fiber. Construction of the first phase, which will have fiber capacity of 19,000 metric tons per year, will begin in November for start-up in March 2014. A second phase will bring fiber capacity to nearly 70,000 metric tons.