Two industry organizations have given more than $1.3 million in grants over the last several months. | Dmitry Demidovich/Shutterstock
In the last several months, the Foodservice Packaging Institute’s Foam Recycling Coalition has given out multiple grants for foam densifiers and the Vinyl Institute awarded nine grants to improve PVC recycling systems.
In total, the two organizations have granted around $1.3 million in the past eight months.
The following are more details on the plastics recycling grants:
The Foodservice Packaging Institute
The foam coalition has handed out five grants for community foam densifiers in the past eight months and a total of 34 grants since 2015.
On Jan. 23, it granted Goodwill’s Green Works $50,000 for a densifier. Green Works is a nonprofit industrial recycler and subsidiary of Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit.
The equipment will allow about 1 million residents in Detroit and neighboring communities to recycle materials such as foam polystyrene cups, plates, bowls, take-out containers, egg cartons and block packaging foam. The resulting foam ingots will be sold to be manufactured into thermal insulation panels for foundations, walls and roofs, as well as picture frames and crown molding.
The Geauga-Trumbull Solid Waste Management District in Ohio got the same amount in October, which will allow the district to accept drop-off foam polystyrene packaging for recycling. The district also received funding for the project from the state of Ohio.
In September a $38,800 grant went to ABQ Foam Recycling/The Foam Recycler, a polystyrene foam recycling service in central New Mexico, and High Point, North Carolina, in August also got a $50,000 grant for a densifier to enable the city’s 117,000 residents to recycle foam PS cups, plates, bowls, clamshells, egg cartons and meat trays as well as block foam packaging.
Finally, Cook County, Illinois’s Center for Hard to Recycle Materials in South Holland received a similar grant in June purchasing a foam densifier for a drop-off polystyrene foam recycling program.
The Vinyl Institute
The Vinyl Institute awarded four companies grants totaling almost $740,000 to advance PVC recycling on Feb. 2.
The companies from this round were Oligomaster of Hamilton, Ontario; Exeon Processors of Jonesboro, Indiana; PolyJoule of Billerica, Massachusetts; and Allied Industries International of Jonesville, South Carolina.
The grants are part of the Vinyl Institute’s Viability program, which plans to distribute $3 million over three years to support R&D, equipment purchases, educational programs and program management. This is the third round of grants from the organization.
The last round of grants in November involved a total of $330,000 in funding for the following five organizations: Auto Mats & Accessories of Dalton, Georgia; the Consortium for Waste Circularity of Gainesville, Florida; Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance of Schaumburg, Illinois; Green Eagle of Georgetown, South Carolina; and the Revinylize Recycling Collaborative of Alexandria, Virginia.
To see details on these and a host of other grants, regularly check out Resource Recycling’s online Grant Watch feature.