A Spanish company is rolling out a deinking technology capable of removing pigments from a variety of recovered resins, a step that eases processing and boosts value. An executive at Cadel Deinking recently presented the patented technology at the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) Technical Forum, which was held in early March in conjunction with the Plastics Recycling 2017 conference...

Water bottles that glow under UV light might sound like just the latest rave fad, but the technology could actually hold the key to boosting recycled content in food packaging. A European project called Polymark developed a marker for PET beverage containers that glows when exposed to ultraviolet light in a retrofitted optical sorter. The substance, approved for contact with...

Using an advanced visioning system and deep-learning capabilities, a robot is now picking an average of one carton per second off a container line at a Denver-area materials recovery facility. It may be an early look at the future of plastics sorting. The project, unveiled on March 16, is a major step forward into the world of using artificially intelligent...

For near infrared sorters, black as a color may not be the problem so much as the type of black pigment used. Two recycling industry stakeholders in the United Kingdom have teamed up to develop and test a black pigment that won't inhibit recognition from NIR sorters. The immediate aim is to persuade makers of black plastic trays used in...

A Basel Action Network project that followed the trail of broken devices didn't just lead to a loss of certification for one company – it also prompted an entire state program to take action, recent analysis shows. The BAN project showed that Seattle-based processor Total Reclaim exported e-scrap to Hong Kong, a fact that caused a significant shift in the...

International appliance maker Electrolux reports it used 7,400 metric tons of recycled plastic last year, nearly double what it used two years earlier. The company, which owns the Frigidaire brand among many others, reports its usage of recycled plastic increased 20 percent from 2015 to 2016. In releasing its 2016 sustainability report, the Stockholm-headquartered company also announced a goal of...

No joke: On April 1, a U.S. state and a Canadian province will implement some big changes to their beverage container deposit programs. Starting April 1, April Fools' Day, Oregon will double its deposit from 5 cents to 10 cents. Saskatchewan, meanwhile, will hike some of its deposits. It will also add milk products to its program, making it one...

No joke: On April 1, a U.S. state and a Canadian province will implement some big changes to their beverage container deposit programs. Starting April 1, April Fools' Day, Oregon will double its deposit from 5 cents to 10 cents. Saskatchewan, meanwhile, will hike some of its deposits. It will also add milk products to its program, making it one...

An industry group has launched an online survey asking municipal and state governments, MRFs and glass companies about their local experiences with glass recycling. The Glass Recycling Coalition will use information from the surveys to "better understand your local perspective and to provide the best resources to help your community," according to the group. The survey closes April 7. The...

If melting items can help combine different materials, exposing them to ultra-low temperatures can keep them apart. That's the idea behind a new technique for separating different materials in shredded e-scrap. Researchers at Rice University and the Indian Institute of Science say freezing shredded e-scrap and crushing it to nanodust can simplify the materials-separation process, allowing for improved recovery. The...