A Word About Recycling with Ollie Maier
Because many of the things you received and/or used this holiday season are made of plastic, an article from the Resource Recycling newsletter on processing recycled plastic seemed like an appropriate one to briefly cover as we see 2019 go out and 2020 come in. Again, I will keep it short as I know you have a whole lot of other things demanding your time.
“A joint venture is set to launch two U.S. processing plants in 2020, bringing new outlets for lower-grade materials. Investments in the projects will total at least $90 million,” the article said.
“PreZero Polymers will open a mixed rigids recycling facility in South Carolina and a film recycling plant in southern California,” the article continued.
They envision once the two facilities get operational, they may open up facilities in other parts of the country. PreZero was formerly known as GreenCycle.
The facilities are aimed at processing difficult-to-recycle plastics. A current South Carolina plant will have a $10 million expansion to process an estimated 50 million pounds of mixed rigids per year. The plant should become operational in mid-2020.
It will shred, wash, sort and make into pellets bales of Numbers 2-7 and 3-7 plastics. The bales will come from materials recovery facilities (MRFs).
The difficult-to-recycle plastics became a challenge after China stopped taking most of them. Thus, many communities found it necessary to dispose the materials or cut them from their programs.
The California plant will be a new 325,000 square foot facility costing $80 million. Plans are for it to process an estimated 25 million pounds of film per year. This material will come from drop-off programs, post-commercial sources, etc. The plant should come online early next year.
This plant will also shred, wash and pelletize the film. Many of these pellets will go to California reusable bag producers. Laws in the state require manufactures making plastic products to use 20% post-consumer content increasing to 40% later in 2020.
The South Carolina plant, which started in 1986, also has facilities in Arizona, Michigan and Nebraska. Let’s hope they consider coming to Texas so it’s easier to take care of the difficult-to-recycle plastics here too.
Till next week, do have a great one with Mary and I also wishing you a very happy, healthy and safe New Year.
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Ollie is a local citizen concerned with the environment and helping others. A retired Air Force fighter and instructor pilot, he is a graduate of Leadership San Marcos and received his degrees at Texas State University where he worked on staff before totally retiring. For questions or comments, he invites you to call him at 512-353-7432.or email omaier@txstate.edu.
