Kickstart: Rolling out the (recycled) red carpet

One winner at the Academy Awards on March 2? Recycling.

Specifically, recycling of the 50,000-square-foot red carpet set up outside the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles that is home to the Oscars event.

Event Carpet Pros Inc. has supplied flooring for events from award shows to movie premieres and golf tournaments — as well as weddings and parties — for decades. It both uses carpet made with recycled materials and recycles those products. The material is converted to fibers and plastic pellets for use in future carpets, mats, insulation and other items.

"Event Carpet Pros is taking [on] the full recycled story, and we will be recycling event carpet moving forward," the company said in 2023 with the start of its recycling program.

In addition to carpet, Event Carpet Pros provides luxury vinyl tile options, artificial turf and natural fibers such as sisal.

In a New York Times profile of the company, co-founder Steve Olive said it has an "anything is possible" outlook that has seen it selected for specialty carpet that could mimic the pool at a Barbie Dream House or slime for a Ghostbusters movie premiere.

Origin Materials Inc. just launched production of PET caps in Reed City, Mich., in mid-February but says it is already on target to have eight of its CapFormer lines in operation by the end of 2025.

"To go from zero lines to eight lines in less than a year is admittedly a tall order, especially for a first-of-its-kind product and a first-of-its-kind manufacturing line," CEO John Bissell said in a Feb. 27 news release. "But we believe our team is up to the task, and we are working to make that a reality every day."

California-based Origin's process to produce PET caps for PET bottles promises to make it easier to recycle those containers. Currently, bottle closures are made with high density polyethylene or polypropylene, and recyclers must invest in separation systems to divert the different materials.

Origin struck a deal with Reed City Group in 2024 to make the caps based on its proprietary CapFormer process.

A $32 million expansion at a Michigan fruit processing plant will mean more cups of applesauce, pouches of juice and bags of sliced apples.

Peterson Farms of Shelby, Mich., handles more than 150 million pounds of frozen fruits and 7 million gallons of apple juice, cider and juice concentrates each year, sold to schools, retailers and industrial customers.

The expansion will see Peterson Farms invest $6 million in real estate and $26.2 million in equipment and machinery, state officials said. In 2024, it acquired Florida-based juice packaging company King Brands LLC in a move that "positioned the company to increase its juice containerization capability," the state noted. With the expansion, Peterson expects to add 96 employees to its existing workforce of 640.