Tire recycler GreenMan Technologies Inc. has completed $1.3 million worth of upgrades to its operations, including the reopening of its waste wire processing operations in Jackson, Ga.
With these and a number of other planned improvements-especially plans to turn its LaVergne, Tenn., facility into a full-service crumb rubber operation-Lynnfield-based GreenMan hopes to return to profitability in 2005.
GreenMan announced completion of the $1 million renovation of the Jackson waste wire operations Nov. 29. The processing line actually started up in mid-November, but the company held off on the announcement until it was sure all the bugs were out of the system, according to GreenMan CFO Chuck Coppa.
Fire swept through the Jackson facility March 31, 2003, devastating the waste wire operations but only interrupting crumb rubber processing there for 24 hours.
A number of setbacks-especially the collapse of Coast Business Credit, GreenMan's primary lender, in early 2003-hampered efforts to restore waste wire activities in Jackson.
GreenMan also has waste wire processing operations in Iowa and Minnesota, but the Jackson facility is now the company's flagship operation for waste wire, according to Mr. Coppa.
``We're selling everything we can make at Jackson,'' he said.
Earlier in November, GreenMan also announced a $300,000 equipment upgrade to its facility in Des Moines, Iowa. The Des Moines improvements include new shredding and screening capacity to meet increased demand for the company's tire-derived fuel products, according to a GreenMan press release.
With a new $9 million financing deal from New York-based institutional lender Laurus Master Fund Ltd., GreenMan said it is making the improvements and expansions it planned to make at the time that Coast Business Credit collapsed.
Mr. Coppa said the company hopes to have the crumb rubber operations at LaVergne on stream by the first calendar quarter of 2005. Its fiscal year 2005 began Oct. 1, 2004.
In the third quarter ended June 30-the last quarter for which results are available-GreenMan had a net loss of $336,000 on sales of $8.1 million. This, however, was a substantial improvement over the $971,000 loss on sales of $7.2 million reported in the quarter ended June 30, 2003.
Founded in 1992, GreenMan claims to collect, process and market more than 30 million scrap tires annually.
It has tire processing operations in six states and has exclusive agreements in Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas to provide whole tires as fuel to cement kilns.