$1M Sonoco investment to bring 15 more jobs to North Charleston

A Pee Dee-based packaging giant's investment in recycling should mean more jobs in North Charleston early next year.

Sonoco Recycling says it has broken ground on a $1 million expansion of its facility at 2025 Tellico Road, where the company currently handles commercial accounts that mostly involve corrugated containers.

The expansion will allow the company to handle up to 1.5 tons of additional recyclable material each month, said Ray Howard, director of operations for Sonoco Recycling.

The company plans to add 15 jobs at the facility when the project is completed, likely in February.

"The engineering work is done, the equipment has been ordered and it is being manufactured," he said Wednesday. "We're starting on the additions we need to make to the building."

The expanded facility will be equipped to process residential single-stream materials -- just the sort of materials that Charleston County is increasingly collecting as it moves toward a single-stream system, where residents can put all their recycling in a single bin.

Sonoco spokesman Robin Montgomery said the company does not have a contract with the county, and has been planning the expansion for some time.

Carolyn Brenton with the county's environmental management department said the county "does not have plans to send residential recycled material to Sonoco's facility."

Howard said Sonoco will handle single-stream recycling from companies and residential areas. He said the company is already managing Boeing's waste stream, helping the aerospace company to be landfill-free at its large North Charleston manufacturing campus.

"We're working with other counties and municipalities that are in close proximity, and most of them have some form of single-stream recycling," he said.

Sonoco Recycling is a subsidiary of Sonoco Inc., a Hartsville-based global manufacturer of industrial and consumer products and provider of packaging services.

Reach David Slade at 937-5552.