Kickstart: Brightmark hoping to plant circular roots in Georgia

Brightmark LLC's founder and CEO, Bob Powell, spends about the first quarter of a new promotional video for the San Francisco-based chemical recycling firm talking about his roots in Georgia, mentioning his grandmother, his high school and his education at Georgia Tech. He then emphasizes that the company's plans for a $950 million plant in Thomaston, Ga., is about planting roots in a circular journey.

What he doesn't talk about in the April 23 news release is that Brightmark already had a highly publicized attempt to open a pyrolysis plant in Georgia, but it pulled out of that proposal in Macon two years ago, facing growing opposition from residents and some government leaders.

PN's Jim Johnson writes the site in Thomston is less than 50 miles from Macon. It would cover 2.5 million square feet and be able to handle 400,000 tons of plastic each year.

While Powell refers to making a "positive environmental and economic impact on a region so near and dear to my heart," perhaps it's just as important that Thomston Mayor John David "J.D." Stallings also makes clear the community welcomes companies like Brightmark who are "focused on building upon the economic stability and urban growth this town has always been known for."

Plastics are helping set the pace for automotive innovations, at least according to judges for the annual PACE Awards.

The awards, from our sister paper Automotive News, announced 2024 finalists on April 21, and a lot of plastics are used among the 33 finalists. Here's a sampling of some of the plastics content:

• Autoneum North America Inc.'s Re-Liner is a wheelhouse liner made using polyolefins recycled from bumper fascia recovered from cars and trucks. Autoneum collaborated on a Plastics Industry Association End of Life Vehicle project with recycler Ultra-Poly in 2023.

• Carbon Revolution, an Australian auto supplier planning for its first North American location, has commercialized carbon-fiber wheels for production at a global scale through what PACE judges said is proprietary technology that can reduce weight by up to 50 percent vs. aluminum wheels.

• Magna International Inc.'s thermoplastic rear swing doors for vans and other large vehicles made the list for coming in up to 30 percent lighter than traditional doors. A thermoplastic exterior door also is more resistant to dents and corrosion. Magna's thermoplastic lift gate for the Nissan Rogue won the top prize at the Society of Plastics Engineers Automotive Innovation Awards in 2013. The swing door project is for Volkswagen.

Winners will be announced April 29.

The future of space exploration may rely on an expandable living quarters made of composites.

Max Space introduced its space habitat at the 39th Space Symposium on April 9 using material from Aluula Composites Inc. that could be part of a "family of scalable habitats in varying sizing" that eventually could cover an area the size of a stadium for explorers.

Living areas in space currently are very limited in size and require multiple space flights to create.

Max Space is set to send one of its inflatable habitats to space in 2026.