CarbonLite is in post-confirmation winddown, with CL Liquidation Trust still reconciling claims, reporting limited or no current-quarter disbursements across the winddown debtors, and targeting final-decree applications by December 31, 2026, as reflected in the latest post-confirmation reports for the quarter ended March 31, 2026Dkt. 1536. The case began on March 8, 2021, when CarbonLite Holdings LLC and affiliates filed chapter 11 after a rapid expansion of recycled PET capacity left the enterprise with a complex secured capital stack, operational losses, delayed facility completion, customer-deposit pressure, and COVID-19-related disruption. Brian Weiss, the debtors’ CRO, described a business with major facilities in California, Texas, and Pennsylvania, approximately 493 employees, negative EBITDA in 2019 and through most of 2020, roughly $112.7 million of estimated general unsecured debt, and prepetition secured and bond obligations anchored by Orion, Bank Leumi, and Texas and Pennsylvania development-authority financings in the first-day declarationDkt. 13.
The chapter 11 strategy was not a standalone deleveraging. The debtors entered the case with DIP financing from existing lender constituencies and a sale-oriented timetable, after prepetition marketing generated multiple indications of interest and potential stalking-horse interest. The first-day record describes interim DIP availability across term, ABL, Texas, and Pennsylvania facilities and milestones that contemplated bidding-procedures relief in March 2021, approval in early April, an auction by early May, and sale closings later that month through the . By July 2021, the case path had shifted into a liquidating plan structure, with CL H Winddown LLC filing the . The court then confirmed the debtors’ First Amended Chapter 11 Plan of Liquidation in September 2021 through the .
The current posture is therefore estate administration rather than operating-company restructuring. The recent reports show the liquidation trust continuing claims reconciliation, reserving rights on claim validity, amount, and priority, and using disclosure-statement estimates rather than final allowed-claim figures in several reports. Some winddown entities report no cumulative distributions, while CL R Winddown LLC reports anticipated general unsecured payments tied to cash on hand and PSS Winddown LLC reports a prior priority-tax payment, but the common theme is that recoveries remain subject to trust expenses and final claims work. The next practical milestone is case closure: the trust’s latest post-confirmation reporting states that it anticipates seeking final decrees by December 31, 2026, while an April 16, 2026 omnibus hearing was cancelled.
