Plastics recycler sees opportunity in new 'dirty MRF'

Indianapolis — There's no shortage of debate when it comes to the expected quality of recyclables that will come out of a mixed-waste processing facility now being developed in Indianapolis.

But one prominent player in the plastics recycling industry is urging people to give a chance to the idea of separating those recyclables directly from the trash.

It all comes down to supply and demand for Scott Saunders, general manager of KW Plastics Recycling Division in Troy, Ala., who oversees an operation that buys recycled high density polyethylene and polypropylene from around the country and beyond.

The merits of mixed-waste processing facilities — called dirty MRFs in industry parlance — were a hot topic during a panel discussion at the Resource Recycling Conference Sept. 29 in Indianapolis.

“Consider it, because we are stagnated,” Saunders said about the supply of recycled plastics flowing to reprocessors these days. “We can't grow because nobody's building new material recovery facilities for curbside [recycling]. The big cities have them. But the small and medium cities, they don't. Landfill is cheap and there's no political will to get it done.”

While concerns were raised on the panel about the quality of recycled paper coming out of a mixed-waste facility, Saunders said quality does not differ between plastics sourced from traditional recycling facilities and dirty MRFs that mine recyclables directly from the waste stream.

He pointed to a mixed-waste processing facility in now operating in Montgomery, Ala., as proof.

Much of the discussion centered on Indianapolis' decision to award a contract to Covanta Holding Corp. to build and operate the MRF. The waste-to-energy company already has a contact to incinerate the city's trash, and hopes to start moving dirt later this year for the construction of the mixed-waste processing facility. It will take about a year to construct before the site begins processing waste and recyclables.

Scott Holkeboer is vice president of client business management and sustainable solutions for Covanta, and his company took plenty of abuse from the some panel members who are against his company's contract with the city for the dirty MRF.

Holkeboer estimated that the new facility's recyclable stream will include about 15 to 16 percent plastics, and Covanta anticipates being able to capture about 80 percent of that total for recycling.

In terms of volume, Covanta figures to recycle about 15,000 tons of plastics from the facility each year, including 4,500 tons of PET, 3,300 tons of HDPE and 6,500 tons of PP and mixed plastics.

“There are a number of plastics folks we've talked to,” Holkeboer said. “There's a lot of interest in our product, and contamination does not seem to be an issue for these folks. Time will tell. Plastics is about the least of our worries. Paper is a concern. But plastics are not concerned about it all, coming up with a good product.”

Myles Cohen is president of Pratt Recycling, one of the largest paper recyclers in the country. He expressed grave concerns about the quality of the recycled paper that will come out of the facility due to the potential for contamination.

“I agree with Scott [Saunders], for plastics and for metals, it's a different story,” Cohen said. “But paper, it's different.”

John Barth, an at-large city councilman, and Carey Hamilton, executive director of the Indiana Recycling Coalition, were highly critical of the project.

“It will stop us from being a better recycling city rather than help us be a better recycling city,” said Barth, who also raised concerns about how the deal was struck.

“What we oppose is the stranglehold of municipal solid waste in Indianapolis,” Hamilton said. “There are two other clauses in this contract that also penalize source separated recycling in our community. In many ways our ability to improve source separated recycling in our community are completely hamstrung by this contract.”

But for KW's Saunders, the new product represents a potential new source of recycled plastics.

“We're open to new ideas. We approach this from a different point of view in the HDPE and PP market, raw materials are generally in short supply. In typical marketplaces, we're always looking for new supplies and growing streams. So we're open to new ideas more so in our segment of the business,” Saunders said.

“What we found over the years is the ‘dirty MRF' material has gotten a lot better,” said Saunders. His company is currently buying plastics from the Montgomery processing site. “We're not seeing any quality differences on the HDPE and PP coming from that facility compared to a source-separated facility.”