Harry Hayes has been director of Houston’s Solid Waste Management Department since 2007. | Photo courtesy of city of Houston
Harry Hayes’ journey to the top of Houston’s solid waste department in many ways began over 40 years ago, when he confronted fears about being the only Black kid in French class.
Bottled water companies that use recycled plastic have recently made new investments and design choices. | iamshutter/Shutterstock
The company behind Crystal Geyser brand water opened a recycled PET plant in Southern California, and Nestlé Waters North America now averages 16.5% RPET in its U.S. containers. The following are details on recent water bottle announcements.
Chemical recycling uses different processes to break plastics down into other chemicals, which can be used to make fuels, new plastics or many other products. | Vershinin89/Shutterstock
A report from activist organization GAIA claims processing strategies that have been heavily promoted by the polymer industry amount to a “greenwashing tactic” undermining efforts to ban single-use plastics.
MDT noted that the newly acquired facility has wash, dry and blend operations that produce recycled pellets for a range of applications. | StanislauV/Shutterstock
A Florida-based resin supplier recently purchased a recycled plastic blending operation from prime producer LyondellBasell.
PureCycle submitted a July 14 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) indicating investors had purchased $1.45 million in equity securities in the company. | Freedomz/Shutterstock
PP recycling startup PureCycle Technologies recently raised $1.45 million in investments, financial filings show. Meanwhile, an acquisition-focused company continues to eye PureCycle.
Industry veteran Tamsin Ettefagh recently left HDPE reclaimer Envision Plastics. | Brian Adams Photo / Plastics Recycling Conference and Trade Show.
Tamsin Ettefagh, who has helped lead a couple of the largest plastics recycling companies in North America, has embarked on a new consulting venture.
Industry groups want the federal government to add a variety of recycled-plastic products into federal procurement guidelines. | Suttipong Prangsuwan/Shutterstock
As the U.S. EPA updates its lists of recycled-content products purchased by federal agencies, plastics recycling stakeholders are making their voices heard.
A leader with Waste Connections said that his company has seen increased collection volumes during the COVID-19 pandemic. | Resource Recycling file photo.
Two large publicly held waste and recycling companies are taking in higher residential volumes during the COVID-19 pandemic, but they say contamination has been flat. Recently, they’ve also started seeing critical upticks on the commercial side.
Ring Container Technologies began exploring and developing a PET canister to replace traditional composite can formats early in 2017. The first SmartCANs were shipped in June 2018. | Courtesy of Ring Container Technologies.
Ring Container Technologies wanted to understand the curbside recyclability of an all-PET container versus its existing polycoated paperboard canister. So it asked recycling programs themselves.
Among the recycling challenges with PET thermoforms are non-PET look-alike packaging and greater fines generation during the recycling process. | BravissimoS/Shutterstock
Several recycling industry trade associations will collaborate on a study to try to move the needle on recovery of PET thermoforms.