Port Arthur 250K-SF textile recycling plant to create 300 jobs

​​​PORT ARTHUR – Relief could be on the way for Port Arthur, a city plagued with an over 9 percent unemployment rate.

Construction on a plant called Pure Renewables Port Arthur will begin by February at the Port of Port Arthur. 

Hiring for that recycling plant should start by the end of 2016, and it could create up to 350 jobs — and those are preliminary numbers.

Developers will lease 250,000 sf at the port, and build an additional 100,000-sf facility.

The company will be a textile recycling plant. Fabric from Asia, where most of the world’s clothes are made, will be brought to Port Arthur and recycled into new fiber. 

This new fiber can then be spun into cloth for clothing, or into non-woven material for baby wipes and diapers.

Commissioners granted a tax abatement for the plant.​