Drawing from the full: How CPR, Inc. efficiently recycles start-up lumps

CEMAC
Sep 11, 2025
2 min read

In the US state of Mississippi, Commercial Plastics Recycling, Inc. (CPR, Inc.) specializes in the recycling of large-format plastic waste from production. The company works closely with nearby petrochemical plants and receives between three and seven truckloads of PET start-up material every day - massive lumps of plastic from the start of production.

Each delivery weighs around 15 to 18 tons. The individual lumps weigh around 70 to 90 kilograms each - too heavy and bulky for conventional processing.

How plastic waste is turned into water bottles | WEIMA WLK 10

Site expansion for higher throughputs

What once began in a single warehouse was expanded to include a second hall in order to store and process the increasing quantities more efficiently. This additional space improves the internal material flow and shortens throughput times. The site now dispatches around nine truckloads of shredded plastic every week, each weighing around 19 tons. This results in over 8,000 tons of recycled plastic per year, which does not end up in landfill sites but is retained in the material cycle.

Start-up lump shredding with a system

At the center of the process is a WEIMA WLK 10 single-shaft shredder, which runs daily in single-shift operation. The plant processes between 6,000 and 8,000 kilograms of plastic per day. The end product is uniform PET flakes 10 mm in size, packaged and ready for reuse in the industry.

To expand capacity and increase operational reliability, CPR, Inc. also relies on a second WEIMA shredder - the WLK 6 S. The two machines can be flexibly operated individually or in parallel. This makes it easy to bridge maintenance phases and efficiently cover order peaks - without compromising on quality.

Maintenance with a plan

A clearly structured maintenance plan ensures maximum system availability. With the WLK 10 the knives are checked approximately every 100 operating hours and rotated or replaced depending on their condition. This predictive maintenance minimizes downtime and ensures a consistently high throughput rate. In combination with the second machine, the team can call up the full production capacity at any time.

Plastic recycling with an impact

Through the recovery and processing of PET start-up lumps CPR, Inc. a measurable contribution to conserving resources. The shredded plastics are used worldwide – for example in the automotive and shipping industries, in fiber production, for electrical cables and in coating and monofilament production. What is considered waste elsewhere becomes a valuable raw material here: more than 8,000 tons of plastic are saved from landfill every year.

See original story published here.

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