Pile of plastic and foam waste in front of an industrial hall.

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

Plastic 02.08.2025

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.

Added value from production waste

Start-up lump shredding at CPR in the USA
Two workers sort chunks of white material on a conveyor belt in an industrial hall.
Success story
How plastic waste is turned into water bottles | WEIMA WLK 10
At Commercial Plastics Recycling in Mississippi (USA), large pieces of plastic are collected and shredded using powerful shredders from WEIMA. These machines process the plastics into flakes, which are then sent to recyclers for the production of new products.
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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.

A group of employees stand together for a group photo in an industrial hall in front of a recycling plant.

Customer story at CPR in Mississippi

WEIMA shredders in three words:
Reliable. Resilient. Profitable.

portrait of Matthew Ewing
Matthew Ewing
Site manager at Commercial Plastics Recycling

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.

A red WEIMA shredder with an attached conveyor belt is ready for material processing in a workshop.

To expand capacity and increase operational reliability, CPR, Inc. also relies on a second WEIMA shredder - the WLK 6 S. Er arbeitet mit derselben Schneidgeometrie wie der WLK 10 and produces identically dimensioned regrind.

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.

A red WEIMA shredder with an attached conveyor belt is ready for material processing in a workshop.
Numerous big bags labeled “PET” are neatly stacked on pallets in a large industrial hall.
An industrial shredder system with feed system and conveyor belt is set up in a spacious workshop.
A large cardboard container is filled with yellow, transparent chunks of plastic and stands in the middle of other big bags in a warehouse.
Large chunks of white and beige material lie on a conveyor belt and are transported to a yellow industrial plant for further processing.
Two lumps of plastic with a thread-like structure lie on the floor of an industrial hall.

three piles of plastic material: purge, shredded purge and granulated purge
Start-up chunks

Would you like to find out more about crushing start-up lumps?

Start-up chunks

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.

An industrial WEIMA shredding plant with feed hopper and blue conveyor belts is located in a production hall for plastics processing.

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.

A person holds shredded, white recycling material in their hands.

Shredded purge

portrait of Christian Zirnig
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