​Industry veterans create partnership to purchase and revitalize Entropex

Two veterans of the North American consumer packaging recycling industry, Emmie Leung and Tony Moucachen, have announced that they have formed a partnership to purchase the assets of Entropex, a Canadian company based in Sarnia, Ontario. Entropex, a processor of post-consumer rigid plastic packaging for the manufacturing of new, sustainable consumer and automotive products, has been in receivership since July, 2016. President Keith Bechard said in a statement issued at the time that despite best efforts, the company had “struggled to meet financial challenges caused by the dramatic decline in oil prices and the very competitive business environment.” The court announced approval of the Leung-Moucachen purchase proposal October 18.

Leung and Moucachen said they will restart the company in a staged manner and with a new name that will reflect a fresh vision and mission. Their vision for the new company is to create sustainable, post-consumer, plastic material products that contribute to the circular economy by preserving their utility and value over their extended lifecycle.

“Our aim will be to create products that help our customers – producers and brand owners –achieve the best possible environmental outcomes that result in cost efficient end-of-life product management,” Moucachen said.

Leung said it will be a challenge to turn the company around but that she and Moucachen are committed to revitalizing the business and bringing green economy jobs back to the Sarnia area.

“We understand the need to develop and deliver programs and services to customers to improve recovery and value throughout the reverse supply chain. We’ll be taking a long look at how we can provide effective, sustainable and responsible solutions to plastics recycling that maximize the value of the recovered materials in closed-loop cycles,” she said.

Tony Moucachen is the founder and CEO of Merlin Plastics Group. A pioneer in North America in plastic packaging recycling and remarketing, he started the company in 1987. Today, Merlin Plastics serves customers throughout Canada and the USA, processing industrial and post-consumer rigid and flexible plastic packaging. Merlin Plastics and Emterra are business partners in another venture which processes and markets recyclables collected in British Columbia’s Multi-Material British Columbia (MMBC) extended producer responsibility program for packaging and printed paper.

Also a recognized pioneer in the waste resources and recovery industry, Emmie Leung is founder and CEO of Emterra Group. It employs more than 1,000 people through four divisions located across Canada and in the State of Michigan, USA. Now celebrating its 40^th anniversary, Emterra offers municipal and industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) customers a fully integrated approach to collecting, processing and marketing waste, recyclables, organic waste, used tires and secure product destruction. The company annually markets more than 500,000 tonnes of recyclables and has more than a dozen material recovery facilities, including five state-of-the art single stream recyclables processing facilities featuring the most advanced recycling technology such as packaging and paper optical sorters. Emterra is also one of Canada’s most progressive users of alternative green fleet technologies, with 35% of its fleet powered by Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and a network of four CNG fuelling stations.