Recycling Today Conferences: Open Door for Closed Loops

Market forces and advancing technology are making in-plant plastics recycling systems increasingly popular, according to presents at a session at Recycling Today’s Plastics Recycling Conference.

In the “Closed Loop Considerations” session, Terrence Bradshaw of Butler-McDonald Inc., Indianapolis, Ind., noted that his company his company gravitated from performing telecommunications equipment disassembly to setting up closed-loop plastics recycling systems.

Systems have been set up by Butler-McDonald to handle toner and ink jet printer cartridges, said Bradshaw. The economics of such systems have become more sensible as resin prices have risen, he added.

Whereas prime HIPS resin has recently cost as much as 80 cents per pound, a closed-loop system can produce 99.99 percent pure recycled HIPS for just 30 cents per pound. “It’s helpful to compare these numbers,” Bradshaw remarked.

For such systems to work, though, “a high level of corporate commitment” is necessary, said Bradshaw, as is a thorough knowledge of the supply chain.

Bemis Manufacturing, Sheboygan Falls, Wis., is one of America’s leading manufacturers of toilet seats. The company has been using internally generated regrind plastic as a cost-effective feedstock for the insides of its injection-molded products.

The company’s Tom Reinemann and Daniel Huhn have been part of a team at Bemis that has set up a closed-loop system to feed “one of the world’s largest co-injection machines.”

According to the duo, the company has not only achieved cost savings with the system, but has discovered that “physical properties can be improved further through injecting filled materials into [the] core.”

Bemis Manufacturing has also reduced its landfill volume by about 50 percent thanks to its efforts to use scrap purgings and fines, saving considerable costs.

“It was a change of culture for our folks,” said Reinemann of setting up the comprehensive closed-loop system, but the bottom line results have been clear.

Luis Castanheiro of Champion Polymer Recycling, Winchester, Ky., stated that environmental and resource conservation needs were clearly favoring increased plastics recycling.

High energy costs in particular tip the scales toward recycling. “It takes about as much energy to bury a ton of plastic in a landfill as is stored in 4.67 gallons of gasoline,” said Castanheiro. On the other hand, “Recycling a ton of plastic saves about as much energy as is stored in 197 gallons of gasoline,” he remarked.

Recycling overall will be an important part in United States efforts to reduce energy dependence, Castanheiro predicted. “Recycling saved 900 trillion Btus [in 2005], equal to the annual energy use of 9 million households, according to an EPA report,” he commented. “Simply put, recycling creates jobs and generates valuable revenue for the United States.”

Recycling Today’s Plastics Recycling Conference was held in coordination with the Paper Recycling Conference and Electronics Recycling Conference at the Peabody Orlando in Florida June 10-12.