PureCycle would recycle plastics polypropylene pellets

PORTSMOUTH — The Southern Ohio Port Authority on Thursday accepted a term sheet and approved an inducement resolution between themselves and PureCycle, LLC in an attempt to lure the company to locate their new polypropylene production facility in Hanging Rock.

The term sheet laid out the terms of support for and described the proposed project. If the Hanging Rock location is chosen by the company, the project would consist of constructing a $107,000,000 solid waste disposal facility on the site.

PureCycle would take in waste plastic and recycle it into polypropylene pellets for commercial manufacturing use, SOPA executive director Jason Kester explained.
SOPA would attempt to help offset the construction costs by issuing finance bonds, in a principal amount not to exceed $85,000.

Debt service on the bonds, according to the term sheet, “will be secured by the revenues received by the solid waste facility.”

The company would obtain additional funding through a combination of Ohio state tax incentives, tax-exempt bonds, new market tax credits, subordinated debt, and mezzanine financing.

The bonds would be payable “solely from the revenues of the project and other available funds of the company” and “do not… constitute a general obligation of pledge from the Port Authority.”

The company would also indemnify the port authority against any cost, expenses, liabilities, or claims and agree upon an up-front, non-refundable $15,000 deposit to be applied towards the port authority’s administrative fees toward the issuance of the revenue bonds.

According to the wording of the resolution “(i)f a first series of the Bonds has not been issued by July 31, 2017, then this resolution shall expire,” unless the port authority chooses to extend it.

If the new facility were to locate in Hanging Rock it would create “approximately 60” new jobs, with an average hourly rate 12 percent above the median household income for Scioto County, according to SOPA.

“It’s a recycling operation, and the final product is polypropylene, which is a form of plastic,” Kester said. “They’ll bring in standard form plastic, and then they’ll break it down, take it back to a pellet, and ship the pellet out to make new things with the pellets. It’s very similar, but a different process than what GeoTech is doing in Waverly.”

While PureCycle hasn’t settled on the Hanging Rock site yet, and are exploring a number of potential sites, Kester said that they hope to have more information by this summer.

“Hopefully some time in the next 90 to 180 days we have some more information, because this is just a preliminary step,” Kester explained. “The company hasn’t made a site decision yet.

So hopefully in the next three to six months I know whether or not they are actually going to choose us.”