Plarco, Inc. is the first company in the United States dedicated exclusively to recycling post consumer and post industrial Polylactic acid (PLA) back into lactic acid — PLA’s fundamental building block. PLA is the most widely applied resin and fiber among a new generation of polymers made from plants, not oil.

Plarco has contracted with supplier BioCor (www.biocor.org), which purchases and resells scrap PLA, to be BioCor’s exclusive recycler of post consumer and post industrial PLA. NatureWorks, www.natureworksllc.com, the world’s leading producer of PLA under the firm’s Ingeo brand name, has entered into an agreement to purchase all of Plarco’s production of lactic acid. The lactic acid will be shipped to NatureWorks’ Blair, Nebraska, facility, where it will be polymerized into Ingeo biopolymer.

“Plarco’s recycling process will help to create true cradle-to-cradle reuse of post consumer and post industrial PLA,” said Plarco CEO Charles L. (Chuck) Terry. “Our contractual relationships with both BioCor and NatureWorks and the trend toward greater use of biopolymers bode well for Plarco’s sustained business growth.”

Today, Plarco is effectively converting specific types of PLA waste into lactic acid suitable for production of virgin PLA resin, and in the near future will be accepting all kinds of PLA Waste. Plarco is located at the WRR Environmental Services and EnviroGreen Solutions facility in Eau Claire. Belgium-based Galactic, a world scale producer of lactic acid, and EnviroGreen are stockholders in the new venture.
 
“The supply chain in which BioCor locates and aggregates post consumer and post industrial PLA scrap, Plarco processes the scrap back to lactic acid, and NatureWorks utilizes reclaimed lactic acid as a cost effective raw material in its polymer process demonstrates the versatility and sustainability of PLA in terms of end-of-life options,” said Mike Centers, BioCor executive director. “Plarco’s unique business model and cutting-edge recovery processes are essential to making cradle-to-cradle reuse of post consumer and post industrial PLA in North America a reality.”  

SOURCE: Plarco, Inc.

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