Blue Polymers to build recycling facility in Buckeye, Arizona

Blue Polymers, LLC has announced that its second innovative recycled plastics production facility will be located in Buckeye, Arizona, to advance plastics circularity and support sustainable packaging. The 162,000-square-foot facility is expected to create more than 60 highly skilled permanent local jobs when it opens in the second half of 2025. This facility joins the previously announced Indianapolis location as part of Blue Polymers’ network of four regional recycled plastics production facilities.

Blue Polymers will specialize in processing polyethylene and polypropylene recycled products suitable for sustainable packaging and other applications requiring increased recycled content. Polyethylene, commonly found in milk jugs and laundry detergent containers, and polypropylene, used in consumer packaging like margarine tubs and yogurt containers, will be processed and formulated into high-quality, drop-in solutions for the packaging industry.

Republic Services, a JV partner in Blue Polymers, is concurrently developing a network of recycling sortation facilities called Polymer Centers. These centers produce high-quality, color-sorted recycled plastic feedstock directly from Republic’s national curbside collection business. Each Republic Polymer Center will be linked with a Blue Polymers facility to promote plastics circularity and sustainable packaging. The Buckeye facility will process feedstock from Republic’s Las Vegas Polymer Center, operational since late 2023.

As demand rises for domestically sourced, high-quality recycled plastics, many consumer-packaged goods (CPG) companies are committing to incorporating more recycled content into their packaging designs. At the same time, five states have implemented minimum recycled content standards for single-use packaging. Blue Polymers’ facilities aim to support genuine package-to-package circularity, with an annual production target of 300+ million pounds of recycled resins.