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Italian Innovation Helps Midwest Exchange Inc. to Bring Sustainability to Local Economies

MIDWEST EXCHANGE Inc.  announced their plans to proceed with their own PET Recycling plant to produce 100% recycled PET material, giving Greater Chicago region a World Class facility and closing the loop for recycling in North America.

“We believe this to be a great step in our sustainability program and provides our clients with an environmentally friendly option to using virgin resin”, stated Alex Casillas, President and Founder of MIDWEST Exchange “Our goal is to eliminate our dependency upon foreign virgin PET resin by producing locally and manufacturing recycled resin (RPET) from local sources of PET plastic purchased.”

MIDWEST is a leading North American supplier of recycled plastics with manufacturing plant in Gurnee Illinois located in the Greater Chicago Region.  This will be the first RPET manufacturing facility in the state, diversifying MIDWEST strategic marketing plan by self manufacturing their resin for local production as well as selling to food grade RPET resin user food and beverage companies for various types of packaging such as thermoforming sheet and bottles.  Using 100% RPET for containers is highly innovative and a market that we believe is expanding stated Alex.  When you evaluate what is happening here in North America you see the demand for r-PET increasing especially in the thermoforming market where Grocery stores  and large Chain Stores are demanding  r-PET in their packaging that they are supplying to the end consumer.  This is particularly the case with our neighbors to the north in Canada where these groups influence the decision of what materials the packaging is made from that a consumer can purchase in their stores.

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The project involves securing a possible new industrial building in the GCR and the purchase of specialized plastics processing equipment from AMUT SpA to clean the PET stream.  We needed to evaluate only one group seriously, and that was AMUT.  Their technology is proven across North American in a wide variety of operations using different materials from LAND-FILL reclaimed bottles in Mexico, to the mixed stream of Ontario, Canada.  In both these operations they produce highest quality r-PET for bottle market with direct beverage contact.   The equipment cleans the materials, extremely well and we know our clients requirements, their demands are for the best, continued Alex.   This is a substantial plan for the future, as the plant will produce almost 7,000 pounds of r-PET hourly or 50,000,000 pounds annually!

Midwest ultimate goal is to produce enough food -grade recycled (RPET) to sustain the local companies’ needs.  This commitment to the environment and consumers will result in a plastic water bottle and containers that are made of 100% RPET.  It will be a ‘green’ alternative for consumers and an environmental breakthrough leading to a substantive reduction in the carbon footprint of packaging in this important consumer products sector.  Alex adds:  No longer will the local material need to be sold off-shore and processed.  We will keep the work in the USA employing more of our community encouraging local job creation and employment.

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In short, this project is driven by a business and environmental philosophy that seeks to reduce the carbon footprint for by closing the loop for plastics, reducing the demand for foreign oil and resin, by  re-processing this commodity locally that is currently either being shipped overseas.

This project will allow MIDWEST to be the first North America to use a water bottle made of fully recycled plastic. There are multiple environmental advantages to this project for GCR and Illinois would no longer need to purchase virgin PET resin, reducing the overall demand for oil. Secondly, the recycling process uses much less energy than producing virgin PET from fossil fuels. In addition, since most of the virgin plastic resins come from Asia, it will reduce transportation requirements and fossil fuel emissions. Consequently, Illinois recyclers would no longer need to sell their material to Asia, further reducing transportation emissions. Finally, purchases of PET plastic in Illinois will provide a stable demand for plastic, stabilizing prices, making recycling centers more economically feasible and helping to promote recycling and keep plastic bottles out of landfills.

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Alex Casillas, President said, “we evaluated several manufacturers of this technology for cleaning of the PET materials and AMUT was selected; their technology gives extremely minimal operating costs and utilized one pint of water to produce one pound of high quality clean r-PET, chemicals and energy, in the cleaning process is also minimized along with other associated operating costs. 

This is the first recycling plant for AMUT equipment in the MidWest USA ,  Anthony Georges, of AMUT stated:  “Being a person with family ties in the GCR we are proud to have been selected to help resolve the  environmental questions of plastic waste.   For years I have been promoting environmental solutions for plastics recycling.  The three R’s are the first three letters in my alphabet, Reduce, Recycle, Re-Use; We can reduce our demand on virgin plastics through recycling the plastics, and thereby reuse the plastic again to make another new product through the closed looped recycling process.  We are extremely excited about being selected as a key technological & machinery partner by MIDWEST EXCHANGE.   What excites me most is the opportunity to create a totally “CLOSED-LOOP RECYCLING” solution for the state of Illinois, working with Alex and his team; a respected and leading supplier of recycled material for the region is another step to local sustainable processing of waste.

About AMUT SpA

AMUT has been devoted to the manufacture of extrusion plants for processing thermoplastic materials even since it was established in 1958. 

Over this period AMUT has established itself as a leading Company in both the field of extrusion and, since the 1980´s, in plastics recycling plants. 

AMUT´s success in foreign markets (80% of its production) is particularly considerable, this is due to its stong export activity especially with machines and complete plants for the extrusion of thermoplastic materials. For more information on AMUT SpA click here