$6M state-of-the-art plastics recycling plant proposed for West Michigan, possible 75 jobs

A Grand Rapids businessman plans to launch a $6 million state-of-the-art plastics recycling plant in West Michigan that may generate 75 jobs over the next five years.

Jim Watrous expects to bring Green Mountain Recycling online by early 2010, with a goal of producing plastic pellets, including custom plastic blends, for use in plastic injection molding machines by the following June. The plant will recycle post-industrial and post-consumer plastic waste obtained through commodity brokers, some of which are already under contract.

Watrous owns Professional Business Services, Inc., a skilled trades staffing firm he founded in 2003.

"We do machine installations for Fortune 500 companies and small machine shops and I had the opportunity to view and install recycling equipment," he says. "It piqued my interest so I did some research on the potential growth, built the business plan off that and the business model off the business plan."

Watrous is working with three real estate companies to pin down a West Michigan manufacturing site with accessibility for transportation and the infrastructure needed to support the equipment.

He has made site visits to several custom equipment manufacturers and will hire skilled trades workers through Professional Business Services to install and maintain it.  

One production line and 12 employees will be in place in the next six months, Watrous says, with five lines and 75 employees in five years.

"West Michigan is a fertile area for very, very talented people in dire need of a job," Watrous says. "We'll need people with mechanical skills, some IT skills, electrical skills to run the equipment. We're not starting a business and hanging a shingle out the door and saying, gee, I hope the phone rings; we're starting knowing we already have the raw material resources and the customers."

Source: Jim Watrous, Green Mountain Recycling

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].