Flexible packaging recycling pilot seeks MRF partner

Materials Recovery for the Future (MRFF) to offer technical and financial stewardship designed to help upgrade the U.S. pilot MRF.

March 21, 2017

Recycling Today Staff

Commodities Municipal Recycling

Materials Recovery for the Future (MRFF), a research initiative of the Foundation for Chemistry Research and Initiatives, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization established by the Washington-based American Chemistry Council, has announced plans to partner with a U.S. material recovery facility (MRF) and its service area to pilot curbside recycling of flexible packaging. MRFF says it will offer technical assistance and financial stewardship to help upgrade the U.S. MRF that participates in the pilot.

The partner facility must process at least 20 tons per hour and meet other essential criteria, according to MRFF. Interested communities or managers of MRFs that meet these criteria should contact Susan Graff, vice president, Resource Recycling Systems, at sgraff@recycle.com before April 7, 2017.

To assist the collective decision to enter into a pilot partnership, RRS developed an economic feasibility model for adding flexible packaging to a MRF’s sorting capabilities. The model provides customized outputs that assess the costs and benefits associated with adding flexible packaging to single-stream recycling systems in a pro forma format.

“With this pilot, we aim to demonstrate the potential to capture flexible film packaging and use the material as a feedstock for U.S. manufacturing while improving the quality of other recycling streams processed at MRFs,” says Stephen Sikra, section head, global research and development, The Procter and Gamble Co., headquartered in Cincinnati.

Flexible packaging is currently present in MRF infeed from curbside collection, but MRFs typically pay to ship the material to a landfill rather than recover it for energy production or remanufacture. Flexible packaging is projected to grow because its consumer benefits and affordability are widely recognized, so collection and recycling strategies are critical, according to MRFF.

Additionally, participating in this new pilot is expected to benefit our MRF partner by improving the quality of paper products through the removal of unintended flexible packaging, MRFF says.

“Flexible packaging is often disposed of as a contaminant of paper products,” says Graff, MRFF project director. “MRFs were not originally designed to sort this lightweight format into a high-quality product.”

She adds, “The members of Materials Recovery for the Future—manufacturers, brands, retailers and recyclers—are actively working to pilot a system that helps the recycling industry develop a new flexible product and better serve consumer demand for recycling.”

The MRF flexible packaging pro forma will vary by location depending on the availability of local end markets and by the sort quality. To further improve the value proposition for those factors, RRS is conducting advanced optical sorter testing with equipment manufacturers, as well as a commodity end use market assessment with a goal of describing product bale specifications for the Association of Plastic Recyclers.

“The intent of the pilot is to help communities that want to recover potentially valuable materials instead of landfilling them and partner with innovators in the MRF industry to recycle this material,” says Jeff Wooster, global sustainability director for Midland, Michigan-headquartered Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics and MRFF chairperson. “Dow is committed to working in partnership with communities and industry to recycle all their packaging, and this pilot will be a major step towards making this a reality.”

The MRFF project members include Amcor, The Dow Chemical Co., LyondellBasell Industries, Nestlé Purina PetCare and Nestlé USA, PepsiCo, Plum Organics, Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson, Sealed Air and Target, as well as the Association of Plastics Recyclers, Flexible Packaging Association, the Plastics Industry Association and the American Chemistry Council.

Carton Council funds project to sort cartons with robots

Project at Denver-based Alpine Waste & Recycling uses artificial intelligence to identify, grab and separate food and beverage cartons.

March 20, 2017

Recycling Today Staff

Association activities Municipal Recycling

The Carton Council of North America has announced it has been conducting a pilot program that uses artificial intelligence to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of carton recycling at Alpine Waste & Recycling, Denver.

AMP Robotics and Alpine Waste & Recycling, through a collaboration led by the Carton Council, have used a robotic system to identify the wide variety of food and beverage cartons and grab and separate them from the recycling stream. The AMP Cortex, nicknamed “Clarke” after the sci-fi author and futurist Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, has spider-like arms with specially designed grippers to pick up and separate cartons at a materials recovery facility (MRF). Clarke was installed at Alpine Waste & Recycling in late 2016 and, through fine-tuning and adjustments, has achieved a pickup rate of 60 cartons per minute. This is a considerable increase from the human average of 40 picks per minute, according to the Carton Council of North America.

“Clarke greatly expands opportunities for the carton industry as we work to increase the efficiency of carton recycling and, ultimately, divert more cartons from landfills,’’ says Jason Pelz, vice president of recycling projects for the Carton Council of North America and vice president, environment, for Tetra Pak cluster Americas. “Everything Clarke has learned about identifying cartons can be transferred to robots at other MRFs. We are excited to bring innovation to carton recycling and believe this technology has widespread implications for the recycling industry, as it can be adapted to other materials.’’

“Clarke provides a new and exciting approach to sorting recyclables. Currently there is nothing out there that does what this system does,” says Matanya Horowitz, founder of AMP Robotics in Denver. “Clarke can be a cost-effective way for facilities to introduce new packaging that does not always have a large volume. Additionally, unique grippers can be developed to identify and pick contaminants, which is one of the biggest issues our industry currently faces.”

Brent Hildebrand, vice president of recycling at Alpine, adds, “At Alpine, we’re always looking at innovative ways to divert waste from landfills while making recycling programs more cost-effective. We recognized this opportunity with the Carton Council and AMP Robotics as a way to contribute toward methods that might encourage people to recycle more. We are extremely impressed with the advances Clarke has already made.”

A grant from the Carton Council made this project possible. The Carton Council and AMP Robotics say they hope to duplicate the success of Clarke at other MRFs as an innovative, cost-effective, long-term solution to sort cartons.

The Carton Council formed in 2009 to expand carton recycling nationwide by building an infrastructure for recycling aseptic and gable-top cartons used for many common food and beverage products. It is composed of four carton manufacturers: Elopak, SIG Combibloc, Evergreen Packaging and Tetra Pak, as well as an associate member, Nippon Dynawave Packaging.

AMP Robotics, Denver, develops robotic systems for the recycling industry.

Alpine Waste & Recycling is the largest privately held commercial waste, recycling and compost collection company in Colorado. Founded in 1999 as a single-truck operation, the company has parlayed a customer-service and sustainability focus into a compound annual revenue growth rate of greater than 35 percent. With more than 80 trucks and more than 200 employees, Alpine handles more than 300,000 tons of waste and recycling products per year.

Utah recycler offers to increase city’s diversion rate

Recycling facility Revolve has offered to process the city’s municipal solid waste and C&D debris.

March 17, 2017

Waste Today Staff

C&D Commodities Municipal Recycling Municipal Solid Waste

The city of Logan, Utah, is conducting a bid process for private trucking companies to haul municipal solid waste (MSW) from its current landfill to the new North Valley Landfill that is expected to open in September or October, while a new recycling facility is offering to increase the city’s diversion rate, a report by the Herald Journal says.

According to the report, the city’s waste management plan calls for 10-ton capacity trucks to pick up curbside waste from municipalities south of Hyde Park and drop it off at the Logan transfer station. At the transfer station, 30-ton trucks will make 15 trips per day hauling 300 tons on weekdays and a little less on weekends.

For municipalities on the north end, curbside waste will head straight to the new landfill.

The city’s Environmental Director told the Herald Journal that Logan can haul the waste between the two facilities for $6 per ton, but wants to see if a private company would cost less. An extra $6 per ton will increase the landfill’s rate from $29 to $35 per ton, which would increase residents’ garbage tax. The bid process is set to end on April 3.

Alex Bearnson, CEO and president of Revolve, a recycling facility set to open as soon as April, said he would be willing to work with the city of Logan and Cache County to divert its waste. According to the report, the city can haul its waste to the recycling facility, dump its MSW and park a truck at the end of the sorting line. The facility’s system of eddy current separators and optical sorters would pick out any recyclables and the remaining waste would be dumped into the city’s trucks and go to the landfill.

Logan is already in a contract with Mountain Fibers to process its recycling until 2020, but Revolve has the ability to process more materials than Mountain Fibers, the report says.

The contract for processing curbside recyclables in Logan is locked in with Mountain Fibers until 2020, at which point the city will conduct a bid process. Bearnson said Revolve has the capability to recycle more materials than currently offered, like glass and pizza boxes.

According to the report, the city of Logan plans to partially close its landfill and use it to dispose of construction and demolition (C&D) debris until 2020, but Bearnson also offered C&D recycling. Revolve has the ability to process wood, asphalt, concrete and other C&D debris and sell it as a commodity.

Sterilis device grinds medical waste

Company says its device allows medical waste to be disposed of in the general waste stream.

March 17, 2017

Waste Today Staff

Equipment & Products Medical Waste

Sterilis LLC, Boxborough, Massachusetts, introduced a different approach to treating regulated medical waste (RMW) designed to enable healthcare and public health facilities to reduce risk, liability and operational costs, while significantly improving patient and worker safety.

The Sterilis device is an alternative to the method of hauling dangerous waste by truck to be incinerated. Sterilis’ device uses steam sterilization and grinding technology to transform medical waste into a harmless confetti-like material, which can be disposed of in the general waste stream.

Many healthcare facilities have limited space and the handling and storage of medical waste is a growing concern. Medical waste transport costs have also continually risen in recent years due to labor costs, fuel prices and waste volume increases.

“The regulated medical waste industry has seen little innovation and still operates under an archaic approach of ‘haul and burn.’ Therefore, the industry is ripe for disruption with Sterilis’ new, safer, and more sustainable approach to treat and safely dispose of regulated medical waste, when and where it is generated,” says Bob Winskowicz, CEO of Sterilis. “The Sterilis device makes handling medical waste safer, protects healthcare professionals, reduces costs, time and labor and reduces the need to incinerate medical waste. We’re excited by the response and customer demand for the Sterilis device as we enter a more aggressive growth phase and expand our sales and distribution footprint nationwide.”

Sterilis devices are in use at hospitals, dialysis clinics, surgery centers, dermatology and ophthalmology practices, needle drop-off centers, health clinics and clinical labs.

Sterilis is also seeing demand for its device in local needle exchange facilities. Many needles are dispensed at a local pharmacy or needle exchange, but some self-injectors are throwing needles away in the regular garbage while others throw them on the ground.

Additionally, demand for Sterilis’ device is coming from facilities looking to address their emergency preparedness plans for situations such as natural disasters or disease outbreaks. The device is a portable, self-contained unit providing on-site remediation of RMW for quarantined areas when conventional methods of disposal are incapacitated.

Sterilis’ device is designed to treat RMW in about 60 minutes. As a result of grinding the waste, the device is designed to reduce the volume of waste by 80 percent, and the sterilized confetti can be thrown out in the regular trash. It includes software that tracks all regulatory data and stores it in the cloud, where it can be accessed and monitored at any time.