Grapevine, Texas — With a new rigid plastics recycling plant up and running for Republic Services Inc. in Las Vegas, the company is now seriously considering jumping into flexible plastics recovery as well.
CEO Jon Vander Ark spoke publicly for the first time about the company's aspirations to copy a business model Republic Services is using to create a network of rigid plastic recycling locations around the country. But this time for flexibles — think films and packaging.
Vander Ark stopped short of saying the new flexible plastics recycling business line definitely will happen, but he said the company is far enough down the line that the move probably will move forward.
"Plenty of work to do, plenty of conversations ongoing, but we're far enough along that something's going to happen," he said during an exclusive interview with Plastics News after a session at the Plastics Recycling Conference in Grapevine where he made a reference to the potential project.
Although, at another point during the interview, he did caution "it's not a done deal."
"We're not going alone. We're working with other people who are deep and experts in that space," he said.
Two years ago, Republic Services revealed plans to get into the plastics processing business with a vision to create a network of regional facilities fed by the company's material recovery facilities. These MRFs historically have separated and baled recyclables and sold them off to other recyclers to then transform the materials.
The company has since pivoted in that approach, having opened up its first polymer center in Las Vegas that takes PET from a network of MRFs and transforms it into flakes that can then be used to make new containers.
Another facility is under construction in Indianapolis and two more are planned for the East and Southeast, but their exact locations have yet to be publicly revealed.
Vander Ark and his company see value in extending that approach to post-consumer flexible plastics, which, for the most part, end up in landfills.
Not only can Republic Services make money by recycling the flexible packaging itself, but the company also would divert the material from landfills, a move that saves valuable disposal space, Vander Ark said.
The CEO said the company is still probably 18 months away from making a final decision on jumping into the flexible plastics recycling market.
Republic Services would use a hub-and-spoke model where MRFs would funnel material to a centralized plastic processing center, an approach the company is taking with its rigid plastic recycling.
Getting into flexibles recycling would be a fundamental shift for how the company currently handles — or does not handle — the material. Flexible packaging and films are not accepted in Republic Services' curbside collection program, although some of the material does make it into the recycling stream due to misplacement by residents, or "wishcycling," as Vander Ark calls it.
While he was comfortable in answering general questions about the company's possible flexible plastic recycling business, he did keep some information close to the vest. Details about what process the company would use to recycle the material, including whether it would be chemical recycling, will come in time, he said. "You'll hear more about that at a later date," he said.
While history is littered with companies that have failed to make flexible plastics recycling a viable business, Vander Ark said his company has some inherent advantages.
"Our super power is that we have aggregation capabilities," he said.
That means Republic Services picks up and processes recyclables from 5 million homes a day, and the volume that would be created by adding flexible plastics to single-stream recycling carts would be enough to provide material for multiple processing sites, the CEO said.
The company, Vander Ark said, also will not approach the project alone but did not provide the identity of specific potential partners.
Vander Ark said the process the company is considering will be able process plastics as well as composite packaging that contains layers of both paper and plastic.
"I think anything that you can take that's going into a landfill and repurpose it, creating a second life for it is great for sustainability," he said, as well as the bottom line.