A $6 million MRF upgrade brought in equipment for improved fiber sortation at the Cal-Waste Recovery Systems MRF in Galt, Calif. | Courtesy of CP Group/MSS
The installation of three dual-eject optical sorters has allowed a Northern California MRF to increase its paper capture rate with a lower headcount, the director of operations said.
The “Resiliency at the Local Level” session at the 2022 Resource Recycling Conference featured (l to r): Eduardo Rodriguez, Alexis Yaple, Kanika Greenlee and Zach Woodruff. | Big Wave Productions/Resource Recycling, Inc.
Resilience in recycling requires a number of elements: upgrading technology, extending contracts or even buying carts for residents.
Thermoforms such as those shown here often contain post-consumer material from bottles, but a California bill would require post-consumer thermoforms to be used in production of new thermoforms. | Anakumka/Shutterstock
Current debate over a California bill requiring PET thermoforms to contain recycled PET derived from thermoforms boils down to one question: What will MRFs do?
California legislators sent a number of recycling-related bills to the governor at the end of this session. | Leonid Adnronov/Shutterstock
When California’s legislative session ended Aug. 31, a number of recycling-related bills passed just before the deadline. Here’s a roundup of bills currently waiting to be signed into law and that have already been signed.
U.S. companies exported 8.7 million short tons of recovered paper and OCC during the first half of 2022. | Richard H Grant/Shutterstock
U.S. exports of fiber bales came down slightly during the first half of this year, trade data shows. At the same time, overseas shipments of scrap plastics took a tumble.
An Oakland, Calif. resident dropped her lawsuit against Reynolds Consumer Product regarding the company’s recycling bags, but in Connecticut a similar case continues.
Reynolds Consumer Products has staved off one of the recent legal challenges to its Hefty Recycling bag marketing claims.
Fiber insiders Ryan Fox (left) and Myles Cohen on stage at the 2022 Resource Recycling Conference. | Big Wave Productions/Resource Recycling, Inc.
This story has been updated
Two corrugated industry experts have crunched the numbers and concluded that the OCC recycling rate is likely much lower than estimates published by the paper manufacturing sector.
For the second year in a row, Recycle BC observed “significant growth” in collected metric tons, with a 17% increase over the past two years. | Lightspring/Shutterstock
British Columbia’s paper and plastic packaging collection rates have rebounded after pandemic-related challenges, reaching a record-high recovery rate of just over 94%.
Some glass recycling advocates have withdrawn their support for proposed California bottle bill legislation in the wake of last-minute amendments. | Fotosr52/Shutterstock
Just days before the end of the legislative session, lengthy amendments were tacked on to California bottle bill expansion legislation, greatly increasing the cost of the program. In response, some previous backers rescinded their support.
A judge determined the key issue was the availability of recycling programs, not whether bottles are made into new items. | Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock
If a bottled water label and cap are effectively unrecyclable, and if statistics show a majority of PET bottles are ultimately wasted, can the containers still be labeled as “100% recyclable”? A federal judge recently said yes.