Kickstart: Who's going to fill the circular economy's gaps?

What will it take to bring recycling numbers up to the level needed to really create a circular economy? While a lot of companies are talking about using more post-consumer recycled plastics in their packaging, there's a massive shortfall between the amount of plastics collected and the amount needed to hit those goals.

Republic Services, the second-largest trash collecting company in the U.S., thinks it can provide the pipeline between consumers and packaging companies.

"We're actually one of the few companies where we think [circular economy demands are] a tailwind vs. a headwind for our business," Republic CEO Jon Vander Ark told Plastics News reporter Jim Johnson during an interview at the recent Plastics Recycling Conference. "We're excited. The economics are really compelling. We had tons of ideas around forward integrating around sustainability. How do we grow this thing?"

For starters, Republic is investing $50 million for a plastics recycling center in Las Vegas that will not only collect and sort plastics, but also produce food-grade PET flake.

You can find out more about Republic's plans here.

Global packaging maker Alpla Group is launching a new microsite called Plastic Reimagined to make a case for plastics.

Alpla, with North America operations based in McDonough, Ga., said the new website follows similar company campaigns in more than 10 other countries on three continents.

"Our goal for this resource is to help people see that plastics don't have to be our enemy, but instead an ecological and viable resource when manufactured, used and recycled properly," said James Rooney, managing director of North America at Alpla.

The Hard, Austria-based company has 177 locations in 45 countries, including 17 in the United States making bottles and caps.

(Thanks to PN's Jim Johnson for this item.)

Even with recycling and sustainability getting so much attention, there's no guarantee of business success. Case in point? Polystyrene Loop, a Terneuzen, Netherlands-based recycler of expanded PS and extruded PS that opened in 2021, has entered bankruptcy and halted operations.

Polystyrene Loop's focus was on EPS and XPS demolition waste containing the legacy flame retardant HBCD, which the company would reclaim through chemical processing. PS with HBCD was used largely in building products until it was phased out in 2015.

The idea behind the facility was to build a plant capable of handling 3,000 metric tons per year, able to recover the PS and the additive, with bromine from the additive going to ICL, a maker of flame retardants, located next door, Karen Laird from our sister paper Sustainable Plastics reports.

However, complications from both COVID-19 delays and rising energy prices hit the business early and it couldn't recover.