Materials Recovery for the Future (MRFF), a research initiative of the Foundation for Chemistry Research and Initiatives, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization established by the Washington-based American Chemistry Council, has announced plans to partner with a U.S. material recovery facility (MRF) and its service area to pilot curbside recycling of flexible packaging. MRFF says it will offer technical assistance and financial stewardship to help upgrade the U.S. MRF that participates in the pilot.

The partner facility must process at least 20 tons per hour and meet other essential criteria, according to MRFF. Interested communities or managers of MRFs that meet these criteria should contact Susan Graff, vice president, Resource Recycling Systems, at sgraff@recycle.com before April 7, 2017.

To assist the collective decision to enter into a pilot partnership, RRS developed an economic feasibility model for adding flexible packaging to a MRF’s sorting capabilities. The model provides customized outputs that assess the costs and benefits associated with adding flexible packaging to single-stream recycling systems in a pro forma format.

“With this pilot, we aim to demonstrate the potential to capture flexible film packaging and use the material as a feedstock for U.S. manufacturing while improving the quality of other recycling streams processed at MRFs,” says Stephen Sikra, section head, global research and development, The Procter and Gamble Co., headquartered in Cincinnati.

Flexible packaging is currently present in MRF infeed from curbside collection, but MRFs typically pay to ship the material to a landfill rather than recover it for energy production or remanufacture. Flexible packaging is projected to grow because its consumer benefits and affordability are widely recognized, so collection and recycling strategies are critical, according to MRFF.

Additionally, participating in this new pilot is expected to benefit our MRF partner by improving the quality of paper products through the removal of unintended flexible packaging, MRFF says.

“Flexible packaging is often disposed of as a contaminant of paper products,” says Graff, MRFF project director. “MRFs were not originally designed to sort this lightweight format into a high-quality product.”

She adds, “The members of Materials Recovery for the Future—manufacturers, brands, retailers and recyclers—are actively working to pilot a system that helps the recycling industry develop a new flexible product and better serve consumer demand for recycling.”

The MRF flexible packaging pro forma will vary by location depending on the availability of local end markets and by the sort quality. To further improve the value proposition for those factors, RRS is conducting advanced optical sorter testing with equipment manufacturers, as well as a commodity end use market assessment with a goal of describing product bale specifications for the Association of Plastic Recyclers.

“The intent of the pilot is to help communities that want to recover potentially valuable materials instead of landfilling them and partner with innovators in the MRF industry to recycle this material,” says Jeff Wooster, global sustainability director for Midland, Michigan-headquartered Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics and MRFF chairperson. “Dow is committed to working in partnership with communities and industry to recycle all their packaging, and this pilot will be a major step towards making this a reality.”

The MRFF project members include Amcor, The Dow Chemical Co., LyondellBasell Industries, Nestlé Purina PetCare and Nestlé USA, PepsiCo, Plum Organics, Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson, Sealed Air and Target, as well as the Association of Plastics Recyclers, Flexible Packaging Association, the Plastics Industry Association and the American Chemistry Council. 

Eight small towns in southeastern Alaska are working to devise a system to move abandoned end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) into the auto recycling stream.

 

An online report from Gavel, Alaska-based television station KTOO estimates the effort can yield an estimated 3,000 tons of scrap metal.

 

The Southeast Alaska Regional Solid Waste Authority (SEASWA) is working with city administrators in the eight towns, including Thorne Bay and Klawock, to set up a “group discount” to provide access to Alaska’s coastal barge system for the ELVs. From there, the vehicles can make their way to auto salvage and scrap recycling facilities in larger cities in Alaska or outside of the state.

 

A city administrator in Klawock estimates the town has a “10-year stockpile” of old cars, appliances and other scrap metal.

 

According to KTOO, SARSWA is negotiating with a regional representative of Houston-based Waste Management Inc. to purchase and accept the scrap. A deal was nearly struck to do so two years ago but fell victim to a rapid plunge in metal prices, the TV station reports.

The Plastics Industry Association (Plastics) has released a new Plastics Market Watch report, “Plastic Bottles Today: Innovating to Reach Today’s Consumer,” which shows that demand for plastic bottles continues to grow in the United States. 

The association’s Plastics Market Watch series highlights the growing reliance on and benefits of using plastic materials in multiple end markets.

Plastic bottles and jars represent approximately 75 percent of all plastic containers by weight, according to Plastics.
 
In 2016, for the first time, bottled water consumption exceeded carbonated soft drinks in sales in the U.S., growing 8.5 percent, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp. Further, plastic accounted for 41.2 percent of all beverage packaging units in 2016, according to same group. Given the increased consumer demand for plastic bottles, Plastics says its new study is a timely look into the trends that shape the plastic bottling sector.
 
“The bottling segment of our industry is projected to grow 6 percent over the next three years,” says Plastics Senior Vice President of Membership and Business Development Mark Garrison. “Recognizing this upward trend, we’ll unveil the Bottle Zone at NPE2018: The Plastics Show as it will prove an invaluable resource for companies that work with PET (polyethylene terephthalate) preforms, blow molding, molds, labeling, filling, closures, design and inspection equipment.”
 
The study provides insight for the entire plastics industry and supply chain, as well as brands and other stakeholders, into the growth and usage of plastics for bottling and containers. Bottlers are currently using PET to develop lighter packaging that saves costs in raw polymers, energy and transportation. The PET bottle designs also are more attractive to consumers in packaging and sustainability, Plastics says.
 
Plastics says its new Plastics Market Watch report attributes the growth of PET to the high ranking of bottling in terms of plastics industry employment numbers, dollar value of shipments and capital expenditures. With bottling’s rapid rise, Plastics says it is vital that manufacturers stay on top of key issues, challenges and advances affecting bottling. In response, Plastics has created the Bottle Zone—covering more than 50,000 square feet on the exhibit floor at NPE2018—which will feature more than 40 industry leaders presenting the latest advancements, technologies and supplies in bottling manufacturing. 
 
NPE2018, the triennial international plastics manufacturing exposition representing the entire plastics supply chain, returns to the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando May 7-11, 2018.

The Carton Council of North America has announced it has been conducting a pilot program that uses artificial intelligence to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of carton recycling at Alpine Waste & Recycling, Denver.

AMP Robotics and Alpine Waste & Recycling, through a collaboration led by the Carton Council, have used a robotic system to identify the wide variety of food and beverage cartons and grab and separate them from the recycling stream. The AMP Cortex, nicknamed “Clarke” after the sci-fi author and futurist Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, has spider-like arms with specially designed grippers to pick up and separate cartons at a materials recovery facility (MRF). Clarke was installed at Alpine Waste & Recycling in late 2016 and, through fine-tuning and adjustments, has achieved a pickup rate of 60 cartons per minute. This is a considerable increase from the human average of 40 picks per minute, according to the Carton Council of North America. 

“Clarke greatly expands opportunities for the carton industry as we work to increase the efficiency of carton recycling and, ultimately, divert more cartons from landfills,’’ says Jason Pelz, vice president of recycling projects for the Carton Council of North America and vice president, environment, for Tetra Pak cluster Americas. “Everything Clarke has learned about identifying cartons can be transferred to robots at other MRFs. We are excited to bring innovation to carton recycling and believe this technology has widespread implications for the recycling industry, as it can be adapted to other materials.’’

“Clarke provides a new and exciting approach to sorting recyclables. Currently there is nothing out there that does what this system does,” says Matanya Horowitz, founder of AMP Robotics in Denver. “Clarke can be a cost-effective way for facilities to introduce new packaging that does not always have a large volume. Additionally, unique grippers can be developed to identify and pick contaminants, which is one of the biggest issues our industry currently faces.”

Brent Hildebrand, vice president of recycling at Alpine, adds, “At Alpine, we’re always looking at innovative ways to divert waste from landfills while making recycling programs more cost-effective. We recognized this opportunity with the Carton Council and AMP Robotics as a way to contribute toward methods that might encourage people to recycle more. We are extremely impressed with the advances Clarke has already made.” 

A grant from the Carton Council made this project possible. The Carton Council and AMP Robotics say they hope to duplicate the success of Clarke at other MRFs as an innovative, cost-effective, long-term solution to sort cartons. 

The Carton Council formed in 2009 to expand carton recycling nationwide by building an infrastructure for recycling aseptic and gable-top cartons used for many common food and beverage products. It is composed of four carton manufacturers: Elopak, SIG Combibloc, Evergreen Packaging and Tetra Pak, as well as an associate member, Nippon Dynawave Packaging. 

AMP Robotics, Denver, develops robotic systems for the recycling industry.

Alpine Waste & Recycling is the largest privately held commercial waste, recycling and compost collection company in Colorado. Founded in 1999 as a single-truck operation, the company has parlayed a customer-service and sustainability focus into a compound annual revenue growth rate of greater than 35 percent. With more than 80 trucks and more than 200 employees, Alpine handles more than 300,000 tons of waste and recycling products per year.