Kickstart: Diving into the recycling pool

Vinyl film manufacturer i2M has garnered some industry recognition for a recycling takeback program for its PVC pool liners.

The Mountaintop, Pa., company has won the 2023 Recycling Award from the Vinyl Sustainability Council for its efforts setting up nearly 100 takeback bins to collect and recycle used vinyl swimming pool liners along the East Coast.

It increased its bin count more than 200 percent this year, VSC said in a Dec. 5 announcement.

"At i2M, we believe in driving positive change in the plastics industry, and this award reinforces our commitment to fostering innovation and sustainability," said CEO Alex Grover. "This isn't just about an award; it's about reshaping the narrative of how our industry approaches environmental responsibility, and we are honored to be at the forefront of this positive change."

VSC Executive Director Jay Thomas said the group was impressed with how i2M had grown the program.

i2M said the pool liners are recycled into other PVC products. The company said it ships collection bins to customers in the pool industry, and then when the bins are full, the company pays to pick them up and replace them with empty bins.

"We believe this is a win-win, as it eliminates the need for pool liner dealers and installers to pay for disposal of liners and prevents vinyl feedstocks from entering the waste stream," Grover said.

Beyond the VSC award, the company said it also offers employees subsidized child care benefits with a local provider and interest-free loans for car repairs and replacement. It also works with local high schools to offer graduation credits to students for manufacturing classes.

Some university researchers in Washington, D.C., are looking for microplastics in the Potomac River, as part of an effort to document pollution in some busy waterways around the metro area I call home.

The Washington Post caught up with researchers from American University and Georgetown University as they collected samples to look for the tiny plastic pieces that other studies have found in water and sediment of the Anacostia River, a major tributary of the Potomac in the Washington.

As with a lot of work around microplastics, health effects for people are not clear, as the Post story from November says. But researchers say they've been found in human blood and organs, where they could impact immune, nervous and reproductive systems.

An announcement from American University said researchers want their work to better inform policymakers and help develop tools like standardized testing methods.

Work is ongoing. This 2021 report from the local NBC affiliate highlighted more work the universities have been doing.

One positive note: The stories quote researchers and others as saying the Potomac and Anacostia are getting healthier.

Not rated swimmable or fishable yet, but the long-term trends are getting better, as other efforts to clean the rivers are making some progress.

It's clear there's a lot of work being done around microplastics. The story reminded me of a 2020 study of a smaller Potomac tributary, Four Mile Run, pretty much around the corner from where I live. It found "relatively high" levels of microplastics pollution compared with similarly situated urban streams.

I think about that when I see all kinds of trash along Four Mile Run and wonder if Virginia will ever have a bottle bill or packaging extended producer responsibility laws to help clean it up.

The Manufacturers Association for Plastics Processors is highlighting some of the creative solutions companies are adopting to stay competitive and address labor challenges.

The association recently honored six firms for their work in areas like developing automated assembly lines to onshore manufacturing work that had been done overseas, as well as efforts to better monitor production data.

MAPP said its members have focused with "laser intensity on automation" and it wanted to spread the word about those efforts.

Besides honoring the companies, including executives from Texas Injection Molding in Houston, shown in the picture above, MAPP published an online book detailing what the winners and other firms were doing. It's an interesting read.