NRT is currently producing about 75 mask comfort products a day, with the first 300 to be delivered to Nashville hospitals May 6. | Courtesy of National Recovery Technologies (NRT).
Normally, NRT’s 3D printer is busy producing parts for optical sorters and other recycling machinery. But amid the pandemic, the company is also using the technology to make mask straps that help out health care workers.
Officials estimate that 20 projects receiving grants will collectively divert an additional 15,400 tons of post-industrial and post-consumer plastic from landfills each year. | ImagineStock/Shutterstock
North Carolina recently awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to help plastics recycling companies invest in new equipment.
Cement Lock can use scrap plastic to fuel its rotary kilns, which produce an additive used in cement production. | Courtesy of Cement Lock.
A Florida company is working to commercialize a process that uses low-value scrap plastic as fuel in cement production.
An industry analyst recently noted that low virgin resin pricing means challenges for ensuring end users choose to use recycled plastic. | batuhan taskinkaya/Shutterstock
The coronavirus pandemic has piled on top of existing plastics recycling market strife to cause pricing fluctuations and create uncertainty about how end users will meet their sustainability commitments.
California cities of 50,000 residents or more are seeing inbound contamination rates between 8% and 46%, with an average of 20%. | Oksana Shturo/Shutterstock
Plastic film has long been identified as a major contaminant in municipal materials recovery programs. Research from the West Coast shows just how challenging it has been to educate residents around proper bag behavior.
News about a $32 million project to upgrade DAK Americas’ Richmond, Ind. plant drew attention last month. | Courtesy of DAK Americas
Readers last month were drawn to a mix of stories about PET recycling technology investments, vetoed recycled-content legislation and our editor’s take on “Plastic Wars.”
California’s governor recently suspended the state’s single-use bag ban for 60 days. | Joanna Dorota/Shutterstock
California’s single-use bag ban has been suspended for two months, with the governor citing coronavirus safety concerns. One plastics reclaimer said the move led to an immediate drop in PCR sales.
If EVOH is used at too high of a level in an HDPE container, it can damage the quality of the recycled HDPE. | Koray Akar/Shutterstock
An innovation is allowing natural HDPE bottles containing higher levels of EVOH to be recycled into pellets that are free of yellowing, gels and specks.
Coperion K-Tron’s feeder can be used for both loss-in-weight feeding to continuous processes and loss-in-weight batching direct to batch blenders. | Courtesy of Coperion K-Tron
The variability of recycled plastic streams doesn’t just present challenges in terms of extruding and molding products. It also complicates the feeding of plastic into compounding equipment.
Troy University researchers are investigating methods for recycling medical plastics into new products. | Rob Byron/Shutterstock
The coronavirus has put a focus on the plastics used in the manufacture of gloves, masks and other types of personal protective equipment. KW Plastics will assist Troy University scientists who are studying the recycling of that material.