Axion boosts recycled structural composite capacity

USA – US-based Axion International – a producer of industrial building products and railroad ties made from 100% recycled plastic – is doubling capacity for its recycled structural composites.

Owing to an increasing number of contracts and market demand for its proprietary technology, the expansion at its manufacturing partner – Ultra-Poly Corp. – is expected to be completed by early May. As part of the expansion, the manufacturing facility will be implementing longer worker shifts and adding two additional moulding machines, as well as dedicated bale-breakers and grinders to process the incoming bundles of raw recycled plastic material more efficiently for Axion.

‘Expanding our manufacturing capabilities has been a major focus for Axion over the past several months,’ says Steve Silverman, Axion’s President and CEO. ‘With our sizeable recent influx of new domestic and international orders from countries such as Canada, Morocco and Australia, we are quickly adapting to our current sales orders and expect to be increasing our production requirements even further to meet the growing demand for our environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional building materials such as wood and concrete.’

Marc Solda, Executive Vice President in charge of operations, comments: ‘What this expansion also represents is a concerted effort on behalf of Axion’s management to broaden our network for sourcing high-quality plastic material from reprocessors and recyclers. By adding dedicated bale-breaking and grinding machines, Axion can now accept post-industrial and post-consumer plastics in larger-quantity bales straight from municipalities and waste treatment centres, providing for a more diverse and streamlined supply chain along with greater cost efficiencies.’

Ultra-Poly is the largest reprocessor of post-industrial polypropylene and polyethylene on the US East Coast.