Alpek Polyester USA LLC, a Reading, Pennsylvania-based polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycler and business unit of Mexican firm Alpek S.A.B. de C.V., will close March 15, according to a recent Worker Adjustment and Retraining Nofitication (WARN) filed with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor.
The closing of the 270,000-square-foot plant, located at 4030 Pottsville Pike in Reading, will affect 100 employees. The facility is considered the largest standalone bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in the Americas.
In 2023, the company told Plastics Recycling, a supplement of Recycling Today, that the facility produces bottle-grade recycled PET (rPET) from bottles collected mostly in New York City, Washington and Baltimore, with most of the resin going back to bottlers in the region…