State-backed recycler to hire 30 for nylon plant
Modular Carpet Recycling will be based at its first plant in New Castle, Del.
Updated: Modular Carpet Recycling Inc. says it will use a $603,000 prime-rate loan from the state-funded Delaware Strategic Fund to open what it hopes will be the first in a series of carpet-shredding plants, at a former furniture refurbishment plant in New Castle, Del., that will sell recycled nylon to manufacturers. The plant will employ 30 "within three years," founder and chief executive Ron Simonetti told me.
Simonetti, a Unionville resident, Drexel MBA and former executive at DuPont Co., General Electric and Fomex, uses technology licensed by Auburn University. He'll be joined by chief operating officer John Fink, a Villanova-trained manufacturing engineer who plans to move back to the area from Nevada for the job.
Why Delaware? "We talked to people in Pennsylvania, but we were able to get the deal done more quickly in Delaware," Simonetti told me. He says his "Renewlon" pellets are "just like traditional nylon." They say they've raised $5 million from private sources -- friends and family, according to Simonetti.