By Michael Lauzon
CORRESPONDENT
Published: August 6, 2013 5:32 pm ET

Commercial Plastics Recycling Inc. has expanded into Mississippi to be closer to one of its main post-industrial sources.
“Logistics are a driving force,” said Commercial President Ben Benvenuti in a telephone interview. “The cost of trucking has skyrocketed in the past couple of years.”
Commercial started recycling operations at the Bay St. Louis plant in late spring. It does grinding, shredding and screening at the site, mainly handling PET, ABS and SAN resins, Benvenuti explained.
The 30,000-square-foot Bay St. Louis plant on 33 acres in the Port Bienville Industrial Park includes a rail siding. Benvenuti said his firm currently is renting the facility but to hopes to complete a purchase of the site by the end of August.
Commercial, based in Tampa, Fla., runs a recycling plant there and in Newton, N.C., and Millwood, W.Va. Other resins it handles include polyolefins, vinyl, high-impact polystyrene, nylon and polycarbonate. The majority of its throughput is post-industrial waste but it also recycles post-consumer streams. In 2011 it recycled about 50 million pounds, most of which was reprocessed with about 5% being brokered before sale.