Brightmark to build second plastics recycling plant

Brightmark plans to spend $680 million on a plant in Macon-Bibb County, Georgia, that will convert waste plastic into waxes and liquid hydrocarbons. The plant, which Brightmark says will be the largest of its kind in the world, will use a pyrolysis process to break down 400,000 metric tons of waste plastic per year into 242 million L of low-sulfur diesel and naphtha and 75 million L of wax. It is four times the size of a similar plant the company will complete in Ashley, Indiana, later this year. The Georgia plant will process a range of plastics—including film and other products that aren’t recycled conventionally—from all over the Southeast. Brightmark CEO Bob Powell says much of the plant’s output will be sold to petrochemical makers that will process the feedstock into new plastics. “You’re going to find, if not all, a very high majority of the outputs being circular in nature,” he says. Brightmark is also working with SK Global on a potential plant in South Korea. Powell says the company would like to establish plants in the Northeast US and on the Gulf Coast.