New York-based PlastiCycle, a company providing plastic recycling services to manufacturers, is expanding into Simpson County.
The company, which already has a presence in Nashville, has purchased a 54,000-square-foot manufacturing building on Washington Way in Franklin, where PlastiCycle President Tony Corso said “25 to 30” workers will soon begin recycling plastic from industrial clients.
“We work with manufacturers and recycle the scrap from their production process,” Corso said. “We take the scrap and re-process it into pellets or nuggets that we then resell for use in other applications.”
PlastiCycle has been providing plastic recycling services since 1998, and Corso said demand for the service has grown to the point that a plant is needed to complement the Nashville facility.
Corso said the PlastiCycle plant on Centennial Boulevard in Nashville processes about 50 million pounds of plastic per year. He hopes the Franklin plant will equal that production.
“This will allow us to double our capacity,” Corso said. “We’re investing around $6 million in the plant, and we already have the machinery and equipment ordered.”
PlastiCycle is moving into a 30-year-old building that has been used in the past for light manufacturing and warehousing.
“We looked at different options,” Corso said. “We looked at sites in Alabama, Tennessee and other areas.”
The available building with easy access to Interstate 65 prompted the decision to land in Franklin.
“This is a great building,” Corso said. “It needs a little love to get it to where we want it to be. We’re looking at doing a carbon copy of what we have in Nashville.”
A news release said the Franklin plant will allow PlastiCycle to provide recycling alternatives to plastic manufacturers in the region while keeping millions of pounds of plastic scrap out of landfills every year.
“Our company will be able to better service hundreds of industries in the mid-South with our new Franklin location,” Corso said. “The community is ideally located for us to serve businesses in the health care, food packaging, automotive and construction industries and we look forward to developing strong business ties with local manufacturers and support businesses.”
Corso said PlastiCycle meets a growing need as environmental regulations require manufacturers to use recycled materials.
“We allow them to be ‘green’ companies,” he said.
Gary Broady, chairman of the Franklin-Simpson Industrial Authority, said PlastiCycle is “a great industry to have in our area” both because of the jobs the plant will create and “the positive impact on the environment.”
Likewise, Industrial Authority Executive Director Dennis Griffin said this new employer is bringing more to the Franklin area than the jobs that will be created.
“It will sure help the landfills,” Griffin said. “I’m excited about getting PlastiCycle here. They’re investing in the community and helping the environment as well.”
Corso said PlastiCycle will begin looking for employees soon. He hopes to have the plant operating on a limited basis by the end of March and be operating at capacity by the end of the year.
“We’ll be looking for the right people to staff it,” Corso said. “We’ll need clerical and manufacturing workers. The equipment takes a certain level of skill to operate, so we’ll need to find the right people.”
