PWP Industries Officially Opens New In-House Recycling Center

Vernon, CA- June 16, 2009 PR Web

PWP Industries opened their new 80,000-square-foot in-house plastics recycling facility at a special ribbon-cutting ceremony held on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 in Davisville, W. Va. More than100 guests attended the event including W. Va. Gov. Joe Manchin and state Sen. Karen L.Facemyer, president of the Polymer Alliance Zone, Inc.

Vernon, Calif. June 16, 2009 -- PWP Industries opened their new 80,000-square-foot in-house plastics recycling facility at a special ribbon-cutting ceremony held on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 in Davisville, W. Va., said PWP Industries Chairman & CEO Leon Farahnik. More than 100 guests attended the event including W. Va. Gov. Joe Manchin and state Sen. Karen L. Facemyer, president of the Polymer Alliance Zone, Inc.

PWP is working with Coca-Cola Recycling LLC of Atlanta to convert post-consumer polyethylene terephthalate, or PETE, bottles into Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-compliant resin for food grade-suitable material. The new recycling center, one of the first for a thermoforming company, is estimated to have an annual capacity to

recycle 40 million pounds of recycled PETE flake.

"This facility is one-of-a-kind because it allows us to take post-consumer waste to increase our own product range while saving energy, reducing our output of carbon dioxide and keeping plastics out of landfills," Farahnik said during the opening ceremony. "In doing so, we will save more than 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year. To put that into everyday language, that is equivalent to the CO2 emissions produced by 20,000 flights from New York to Los Angeles."

Coca-Cola Recycling will be the primary supplier of recycled PETE flake that PWP will use as FDA-compliant resin for the production of food packaging. The limited liability company is a subsidiary of publicly traded Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., the largest bottler of Coca-Cola products. Manufacturing of post-consumer-resin PETE is estimated to use about two-thirds less energy than production of virgin PETE.

Performing the actual ribbon-cutting honors was Gov. Manchin who spoke about the importance of preserving the environment during his remarks: "It's been said that we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. We are the stewards of the environment. The economy and the environment can be balanced in harmony, and we can do that here in West Virginia."

After the formal opening ceremony guests were given a tour of PWPs new state-of-the-art PETE Recycling Center. Employees explained how the PETE flake is washed and cleaned thoroughly to ensure removal of the label, cap, and tamper-evident neck-band materials and other debris before being polymerized into usable, FDA-compliant materials. In addition, nearly all outputs of the process, including the cap and label material, are salable for other purposes. Making plastic products from post-consumer recycled material has a tremendous impact on the environment. For example:

* Recycling one ton of plastic saves 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide.

* The energy saved by recycling one plastic bottle will power a computer for 25 minutes.

* Each ton of plastic bottles recycled in a recycling center saves 7.4 cubic yards in a landfill.

* Resin made from recycled PETE bottles saves about two-thirds more energy than virgin resin.

Other dignitaries in attendance at the ribbon-cutting ceremony included Neil Kadisha and Parviz and Benjamin Nazarian of Omninet Capital, LLC along with a number of state and local W. Va. government officials. PWP Industries, founded in 1998, is a leading PETE and Polyethylene food packaging thermoformer in North America, with manufacturing plants located in Vernon California, Abilene Texas, and Mineral Wells West Virginia. PWP is highly regarded in the food packaging industry for producing competitively priced quality parts, superb customer service and innovative product designs.