Darlington County company announces $8 million expansion, 30 new jobs
by JIM FAILE
DARLINGTON - A company that provides resins used in the production of plastic beverage bottles announced an $8 million expansion at its Darlington County facility, a move company and county officials said will bring 30 additional jobs to the county.
PolyQuest, a recognized leader in the development of new and recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET), is the largest distributor of PET resins in North America.
The Darlington distribution and recycle site is the company’s flagship recycling facility, company officials said in a press release announcing the expansion. PolyQuest is headquartered in Wilmington, N.C.
This will be the company’s sixth expansion at the Darlington facility. The company has operated in Darlington County for 10 years.
Officials said the new jobs will pay well above minimum wage.
The announcement came Friday, the same day that the S.C. Employment Security Commission released figures showing Darlington County’s unemployment rate slipping from 13.7 percent in February to 13.0 percent in March.
“This expansion happened locally because of the value we see in our current labor force and the aggressiveness of Darlington Council Chairman Billy Baldwin and the Darlington County Council as a whole, Sen. (Gerald) Malloy, Progress Energy and the State of South Carolina Commerce Department,” said Brad Dutton, vice president and general manager of PolyQuest Inc.
“It gives me great pleasure to announce the expansion of PolyQuest’s Darlington County facility,” council Chairman Billy Baldwin said. “I look forward to working with this company in the future.”
“I want to thank PolyQuest and Mr. Brad Dutton,” said Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Hartsville. “I’m very appreciative of the dedication this company has shown to Darlington County. For them to expand here and to help provide more jobs for people in this community, that shows their commitment to Darlington County. Their willingness to invest and reinvest here is one of the things that make Darlington County special.”
Malloy also singled out Baldwin’s efforts on the expansion. “I want to personally thank Chairman Billy Baldwin,” he said. “He personally drove this, and he deserves a lot of credit.”
The expansion will add about 65 million pounds of annual processing capacity at the Darlington facility, the company press release said.
Although some aspects of the investment involve proprietary technology, PolyQuest disclosed that it includes a combination of PET extrusion and solid state technology for upgrading post consumer bottle flake as well as separate stand alone batch solid stating units primarily used for IV enhancement of specialty virgin PET resins.