By Dave DeWitte
TIPTON – A major expansion of Cedar Poly’s plastics recycling facility in Tipton this spring will double the company’s space and capacity.
Cedar Poly plans to build a 60,000-square-foot addition to its facility in the Tipton Business Park, where it has purchased an additional four acres of property, according to Tipton Economic Development Corp.
The expansion will add on-site warehousing, loading docks and allow the company to add a second extruder to expand production from the current 40,000 pounds per day to 80,000 pounds per day of recycled materials, according to Scott Rogers, vice president-operations and co-owner.
Most of the plastic containers and polypropylene film recycled at the facility come from within a 300-400 mile radius. Some of the material is cleaned and palletized for shipment to China and other manufacturing destinations. Some of it is reprocessed as resin pellets, and some is ground into flakes for further processing.
The expansion is expected to begin in spring and be completed by late summer, Mr. Rogers said. It is expected to raise employment at Cedar Poly from about 45 to 50 or more.
The expansion was applauded by Tipton Economic Development Corp. Director Abby Kisling.
“They’ve been a great business to have in the community,” said Ms. Kisling, noting that the company arrived in 2007, and has built a sizable work force.
According to Mr. Rogers, the addition of onsite warehousing will benefit Cedar Poly by providing more flexibility to its operation. The company may choose to sell recycled plastic immediately or hold onto it depending on whether market prices are good or bad, and onsite warehousing will provide more convenient space to hold recycled material.
Cedar Poly is one of a handful of businesses in Iowa that recycles plastics, Mr. Rogers said. While most companies ask the state for incentives when expanding, Mr. Rogers said Cedar Poly is not. He said the company was pleased to receive a good price for the land it needed to expand and will receive a short-term property tax abatement on its building.
In addition, Mr. Rogers said, the lack of state incentives will reduce the red tape associated with the expansion.
Cedar Poly, in addition to recycling plastics, does a lot of repackaging of plastics for shipment overseas. Container shipments of sorted plastics are sent to China via the Port of Oakland in California.
While Cedar Poly also recycles polypropylene film rolls, the recycling of No. 2 recyclable articles, such as milk jugs into resin has been the fastest growing part of the business.
Demand for recycling services and use of recycled content is growing, Mr. Rogers stated, with some customers obligated to include a specific amount of recycled content in their products. The recycled material is also typically less expensive to use, he added.
Located nine miles north of I-80 off Highway 38, the Tipton Business Park’s expansion area was the first certified shovel ready through Iowa City Area Development Group’s Shovel Ready Iowa program. The certification shows businesses that expansion sites offered are suitably zoned and have the necessary infrastructure to be developed immediately.
Cedar Poly started in 1992 in Coralville’s industrial park in what is now the Iowa River Landing district. Mr. Rogers had just graduated from high school and entered the family business; his parents own North Cedar Recycling in Stanwood. Scott Rogers and his brother, Jeremy Rogers, launched Coralville’s curbside recycling program that year.
Their Coralville property was bought by the city and the family moved the operation to Cedar County, where commercial property was available for the right price. They built the Tipton facility, which Scott Rogers runs; Jeremy Rogers operates the Bennett location, at 230 Main St.
The 62,000-square-foot Tipton location was constructed in 2007 through a tax increment financing agreement with the city that was expected to bring up to 12 new jobs to the area. The facility now employs 45 people. The Bennett location employs about 20 people.
At the Tipton location, the business buys a range of plastics from companies throughout the Midwest, in Kansas City, Chicago and St. Paul, even as far north as Canada. Cedar Poly takes plastics from area companies such as shampoo bottles from Procter & Gamble and Alpla, as well as laminate plastics and product wrappers from large packaging companies. Cedar Poly also processes the plastics recycling for all the Walmarts in Iowa.
Those plastics are then washed, sorted and baled along with curbside recyclables. Eighty to 90 percent of it is then sold to China-based companies that process the plastics even further. Most of it is converted into high density polyethylene, which is the most commonly used polymer in agriculture and lawn and garden products because of its flexibility.
In 2011, Cedar Poly invested $600,000 in new equipment, which allowed the company to sell a more refined recycled plastic. The plastic is converted into molten plastic and sent through finely-meshed screens that will remove any remaining impurities, such as paper labels. The end product is be a higher-quality pellet, which is coveted by companies scrambling to meet federal guidelines regarding recycled plastic content.
For more information, visit www.cedarpoly.com.
