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’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.
The Richmond, Ind. plant will be DAK Americas’ second producing food-grade 100% RPET pellets. | Courtesy of DAK Americas
DAK Americas will spend $32 million on a project allowing it to produce food-grade 100% RPET pellets in North America for the first time.
Bloem is a mid-sized planter manufacturer producing about 25 million pots a year. | Courtesy of Bloem.
A polypropylene planter producer has begun molding with marine plastics, after the company and its suppliers overcame melt flow and color consistency challenges.
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KW has converted several of its extrusion lines over to produce recycled natural HDPE to meet demand for packaging.
The coronavirus has disrupted end markets for KW Plastics, moving demand away from industrial applications and toward packaging for essential products.
The carpet recycling industry is already facing pressures from low plastics prices, a shift in polymers used in carpet and collection challenges from the coronavirus. | ND700/Shutterstock
Carpet manufacturers are halting their nationwide voluntary subsidy program for carpet recycling, which could push some struggling processors out of business.
Circulate Capital’s April Crow (center) at the 2019 Resource Recycling Conference and Trade Show, held in August in New Orleans. | Resource Recycling, Inc./Brian Adams Photography
An ocean plastics prevention fund has $106 million in hand and is gearing up to announce its first investments in Southeast Asian waste management infrastructure.
The $349 billion in initial funding for the Paycheck Protection Program ran out within two weeks. | NIKCOA/Shutterstock
Reclaimers and other processors across the country are looking to a federal assistance program to help them overcome cash-flow problems sparked by the coronavirus. Some have been successful, but others are running into banking complexities and tapped-out funding.