Despite having a landfill ban in place, problems have plagued electronics recycling in Colorado for years, and stakeholders are working to find a solution. The Colorado Association for Recycling (CAFR) will hold a roundtable discussion this month, bringing together industry members to talk about ways to solve the lack of electronics recycling options. The talk is titled “E-Waste Recycling -...

Parties working to reopen an idled plastics recovery facility in Maryland are going back to the drawing board after a possible investor withdrew from talks. The Dundalk, Md. facility, launched in 2015 as a joint venture between QRS Recycling and Canusa Hershman Recycling, has been closed since August. In February, Plastics Recycling Update reported that an interested party had signed...

Officials in China have announced an enforcement campaign to implement the country’s new import restrictions. Dubbed Blue Sky 2018, the action will run from March through December, according to China’s General Administration of Customs. It will focus on preventing the import of recovered materials named in the country’s ban on certain recyclables, which took effect Jan. 1, as well as...

Last year presented an upheaval in the global recovered plastics market, and the impacts continue to roll in. Three experts recently shared their thoughts on the specific causes of the volatility. China permeated the discussion, which took place at last month's Plastics Recycling 2018 event in Nashville, Tenn., but the analysts made it clear a number of factors in the...

Chinese recycling executives see a promising outlook for Asian companies looking to invest in the U.S. as a result of China’s import restrictions. Representatives of the China Scrap Plastics Association (CSPA) visited 18 companies and industry associations in six U.S. states after the Plastics Recycling Conference in Nashville, Tenn. last month. During those meetings, the group gained an understanding of...

Industry stakeholders have formed a state recycling organization in Ohio. The group aims to serve as a one-stop shop for business development and support services. The Ohio Recycling Coalition (ORC) has been in development for about a year, and recently officially announced its launch with a March 25 press release. The group will “provide business resource assistance for new startup...

A glass bottle reuse program in Oregon has taken major steps forward, with glass giant Owens-Illinois creating a standardized refillable bottle for breweries and long-term plans for a wash facility moving forward. Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative (OBRC), the industry-managed stewardship group that runs the Beaver State’s container deposit program, is working with a number of stakeholders to expand what has...

Officials in China have announced an enforcement campaign to implement the country’s new import restrictions. Dubbed Blue Sky 2018, the action will run from March through December, according to China’s General Administration of Customs. It will focus on preventing the import of recovered materials named in the country’s recyclables ban, which took effect Jan. 1, as well as cracking down...

An industry-funded ocean plastics prevention initiative has received support from a number of new partners, including brand owners, a chemicals giant and an intergovernmental group. Closed Loop Partners announced last week that the collaborative Closed Loop Ocean effort has added The Coca-Cola Company, Dow Chemical Company, Kimberly-Clark, and Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA) as...

Federal researchers have examined an electricity-based processing method that could open doors to more cost-effective and environmentally friendly methods of metals recovery from electronics. Tedd Lister and Luis Diaz-Aldana, researchers with Idaho National Laboratory’s biological and chemical processing department, found that electrochemical recovery (ER) of materials from e-scrap involves significantly lower capital investment, emits less pollution and uses fewer chemicals than...