New company formed to recycle post-consumer and post-industrial PLA

The newly formed Plarco, Inc. is the first company in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to recycling post-consumer and post-industrial Polylactic acid (PLA) back into lactic acid. PLA is lactic acid’s fundamental building block, and is the most widely applied resin and fiber among a new generation of polymers made from plants, not oil.  

Plarco has contracted with supplier BioCor (which purchases and resells scrap PLA) to be BioCor’s exclusive recycler of post-consumer and post-industrial PLA. NatureWorks, one of the world’s leading producers of PLA, under the firm’s Ingeo brand name, has entered into an agreement to purchase all of Plarco’s production of lactic acid. The lactic acid will be shipped to NatureWorks’ Blair, Nebraska, facility, where it will be polymerized into Ingeo biopolymer.  

“The supply chain in which BioCor locates and aggregates post-consumer and post-industrial PLA scrap, Plarco processes the scrap back to lactic acid and NatureWorks utilizes reclaimed lactic acid as a cost-effective raw material in its polymer process, demonstrates the versatility and sustainability of PLA in terms of end-of-life options,” said Mike Centers, BioCor executive director.

“Plarco’s unique business model and cutting-edge recovery processes are essential to making cradle-to-cradle reuse of post-consumer and post-industrial PLA in North America a reality.”