Resource Recycling News

CalRecycle to fund mixed plastics facility, other projects

Stacked bales of mixed plastics.

A secondary sorting facility pulling deposit containers out of mixed plastic bales was awarded funding from the state of California. | Hiv360/Shutterstock

California’s state recycling agency will provide $10 million toward a facility sorting plastics with resin codes 2-7, additional multimillion dollar grants for several major MRF retrofits, and a handful of smaller awards for localities to install recycling collection containers.

The funding, approved at CalRecycle’s April 22 monthly meeting, comes from multiple pots of money earmarked for beverage container recycling improvements.

The largest single grant was awarded through the Beverage Container Quality Infrastructure Grant Program, which funds sorting-related projects for “creating clean streams of beverage container materials that are substantially free of contamination from existing curbside recycling programs or drop-off collection programs.”

Totaling $10 million, the grant was awarded to GreenWaste Recovery, the San Jose-area MRF and compost facility operator. In the grant description, GreenWaste proposes to create a “secondary plastic plant system dedicated to sorting and processing mixed plastic bales (types 2-7),” sourced from GreenWaste’s own single-stream MRF and from other facilities.The project comes after GreenWaste bale audits showed additional high-quality deposit containers were available for recovery, according to the description. 

Totaling 2.34 acres — over 100,000 square feet — the facility will feature equipment from Bulk Handling Systems, including NRT SpydIR-HS optical sorters and the company’s Total Intelligence Platform. The platform is already in use at GreenWaste’s existing San Jose MRF and provides AI-enabled data analytics on the material stream.

CalRecycle also approved the following MRF grant projects:

CalRecycle also approved 15 projects for local and tribal governments, schools and other organizations to install container recycling receptacles or water refill stations, and to engage in public outreach promoting recycling and reusable container use. The grants totaled $3 million and were issued through the Beverage Container Recycling Grant Program.

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