Brightmark Energy LLC is teaming up with a workforce training program for former inmates to provide feedstock for a used plastics-to-fuel site being built in Indiana.
RecycleForce is an Indianapolis-based program that provides workforce training to former prisoners. That operation will supply Brightmark up to 1,700 tons of plastics from televisions, computers, car seats and "similar products" at a plastics-to-fuel plant now under construction in Ashley, Ind.
"We recycle many tons of plastic every year, but when we receive plastics that are contaminated with food waste or other nonrecycle materials, they have to be sent to landfills," RecycleForce President Gregg Keesling said in a statement. "Our partnership with Brightmark will enable us to instead recycle these plastics and will open up significant capacity for us to attract new suppliers of recyclable materials."
Brightmark also will hire RecycleForce-trained personnel at its Ashley site.
"I recently visited RecycleForce's facility in Indianapolis, and I left feeling so inspired by the important work they do," Brightmark Energy CEO Bob Powell said in a statement. "Brightmark is incredibly proud to be collaborating with an organization that provides such vital services to the community and to formerly incarcerated folks — and their families by extension — who are trying to change their lives for the better."