Coca-Cola says S.C. recycling joint venture to be restructured

By Jeremiah McWilliams

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

One of the country's largest bottle recycling plants appears to be in trouble. Coca-Cola Co., which has spent more than $40 million on the project, said this week the joint venture running the Spartanburg, S.C., plant needs to be restructured.

On Monday, PlasticsNews.com reported the plant had closed and 50 workers had been laid off. Coca-Cola said plans are in place for the facility to continue to operate. But the plant is not currently producing new recycled content.

It's an unpleasant turn for an operation that opened with great fanfare in early 2009, when Coca-Cola celebrated its partnership with United Resource Recovery Corp. The recycling company had worked with Coca-Cola for more than a decade.

The joint venture between the two companies built what was described as the world's largest plastic bottle-to-bottle recycling plant. The Spartanburg complex was supposed to test technology that would increase access to recycled content for use in Coca-Cola's bottles.

Coca-Cola insists that desire has not changed. But turning plastic into food-grade containers is more costly than creating fibers or textiles. Those expenses have hurt the prospects of the Spartanburg facility, which was supposed to produce 100 million pounds of food-grade recycled plastic per year when fully operational -- the equivalent of almost 2 billion 20-ounce Coca-Cola bottles.

This week, Coca-Cola said the joint venture needs to be restructured "in light of current business conditions." The company said it could not discuss the specifics of its business dealings with the joint venture. Representatives of Spartanburg County and the joint venture, NURRC, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Coca-Cola said it remains committed to its goal of sourcing 25 percent of its polyethylene terephthalate plastic from recycled or renewable material by 2015 and recovering an amount of bottles and cans equal to 50 percent of its production.