The Sterling Group, an operationally focused middle-market private equity firm, has formed a new PET recycling platform company, Evergreen. Sterling executed the carve-out of Evergreen, the recycling division of current portfolio company, Greenbridge Packaging, and merged it with the Riverside, California assets of CarbonLite, acquired through a 363 bankruptcy process.

“The combination of these two businesses creates a growing national supplier that is well equipped to help its major consumer packaged goods customers increase recycled content in their packaging and thus lessen their impact on the environment,” said Scott MacLaren, partner at The Sterling Group. “We look forward to partnering with management to bring our collective decades of experience operating recycling facilities to the continued expansion of Evergreen.”

“We are focused on elevating our commitment to rPET bottle-to-bottle recycling,” said Omar Abuaita, CEO of Evergreen. “This is an exciting time; Riverside’s recycling and food grade rPET manufacturing capabilities are well aligned with the great team and operations we have in place at Evergreen and our plans to bring more high quality, food grade rPET to our customers.”