Water bottler opens new closed-loop facility in Ontario

Bottled water producer Ice River Springs has completed converting an industrial building in Shelburne, Ont. into a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling plant, said to be the first to self-manufacture its own resin and produce plastic water bottles made of 100 per cent recycled plastic.   

The conversion project, which was announced last March, allows the Feversham, Ont.-based company to produce clean PET flake, and then purify the material to food-grade resin approved by both Health Canada and the Food and Drug Administration.

The new facility is operating under the name Blue Mountain Plastics.

“The vision and support of Stewardship Ontario was instrumental in making self-manufactured bottle-to-bottle recycling happen”, said Sandy Gott, co-owner of Ice River Springs. “The response from retailers has been very positive, and we’ve heard from consumers that they will be more diligent about recycling now that they know we have created a closed-loop system in Ontario”.

Stewardship Ontario is a private, not-for-profit organization responsible for Ontario’s Blue Box and Orange Drop recycling programs. 

Founded in 1995, Ice River Springs is a family-owned and operated private label bottler. The company operates seven bottling plants; three in Canada and four in the U.S.