North Vernon Indiana

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An Inside Look at the World's Largest “Bag-2-Bag” Recycling ...

Hilex Poly is working hard to develop a recycling stream that will change the way you think and feel about about plastic bags.

"We want to be the industry that helps improve and green other industries" explained Phil Rozensky, Director of Marketing and Sustainability, before leading myself and three other journalists on a tour of their impressively large (the world's largest) and efficient (machines run at 85%, a gold-standard) facility.  Keep scrolling to follow along.

An estimated 8 billion pounds of plastic bags and wraps are tossed out as trash every year in the US alone.

The world's population uses plastic bags at the rate of one million every minute.

Many people think that because plastic grocery bags aren't accepted at Municipal Recycling Facilities (they clog machinery and start fires) they aren't recyclable.  In fact, the high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic that composes these grocery bags is 100% recyclable and Hilex Poly's"Bag-2-Bag" recycling facility in North Vernon, Indiana does just that.

The facility operates under the guidance of 250 employees working around the clock to crank out 28 million plastic bags every day.

Bailed plastics are brought in by rail and truck from participating retailers and industries.

A scraper and two heat sources push across the plastic as it is formed into pellets.  Pellets from the wet-line process described above and the dry-line process (which includes higher-value stretch films and first-use plastic bag scrap such as handle cut-outs) are reprocessed to form compounded North Vernon (CNV)  pellets.

It takes about a dozen CNV pellets to make a post-consumer recycled grocery bag CNV pellets are weighed and mixed in a barrel at the bottom of these extruders where they are heated to 430F.  By the time the bubble forms a cone, its temperature has dropped to 200F thanks to cooling air that runs the length of the film.  When the film reaches the floor above it is wound onto rollers at a manageable 120F.  The rollers spin clockwise to offset twisting.

Plastic Film Rolls

The average roll weighs about 1500 lbs.  Tan rolls in the foreground and gray rolls in the background are made from post-consumer plastics--the white and blue will become first-run bags; "breaks my heart to see it go away like that.  It should have a note, 'return to original owner'" said Regional Manager, Doug Johnson, who followed the company from Texas.

North Vernon, Indiana, bridge

Jennings County, Indiana, 1816-1999

Report of the Adjutant General of the state of Indiana

Transactions of the Indiana State Medical Society

Transactions of The Indiana State Medical Association