A recent issue of Time magazine has named an Ironton company’s recycling process amongst the best inventions of 2019.

The magazine lauded PureCycle Technologies for its process of turning used polypropylene, one of the most commonly used plastics, into a resin that is pure enough it can be used in packaging for food and only uses a fraction of energy that it takes to make virgin resin.

“We’re actually taking plastic that wouldn’t ever be recycled again and making it indefinitely recyclable,” Mike Otworth, PureCycle’s CEO, told Time magazine.

PureCycle started up its feedstock evaluation unit in Haverhill, at the old Dow Chemical site, in partnership with P&G in 2015.

The company is now scaling up, expecting to start construction on its first recycling plant in Lawrence County soon. The Lawrence County Port Authority signed off on a bond agreement allowing a bond of up to $250 million last fall for the company to buy equipment.

The plant will have the capacity to recycle over 119 million pounds of polypropylene and to produce 100 million pounds of UPRP per year, starting in 2021.

With the Ohio plant’s capacity sold out two years ahead of start-up, PureCycle is planning for a second plant, this time in Europe, to keep up with demand.

PureCycle struck a major deal with beauty brand L’Oreal in July 2019 for the full subscription of its Ohio plant’s capacity with the option for L’Oreal to be among the first purchasers of volume out of its plant in Europe.

It also has a deal with packaging specialist, Aptar Group, to make packaging for food products in Europe. And the company is working with Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage company, to develop packaging materials that help avoid plastic waste. Nestlé has a goal of making all its packaging 100 percent recyclable or reusable by 2025.

According to Time magazine, PureCycle has already presold their products for the next two decades.