Advanced Recycling: A Pivotal Tool for Circularity

As he explained, the sorting of plastic waste residue from MRFs is a complex process, given that the composition of a bale of MRF residue is not the same from facility to facility, or even consistent from the same facility. “The plants are very different,” he said. “Some are old, some are new, some are better than others. The MRF residue can come from different sources within the MRF. So these waste plastic plants have to expect all different types of contamination coming into these facilities.”

Van Dyk Recycling Solutions supplied the preprocessing equipment for Freepoint Eco-Systems, which is opening a new plant in Ohio to process waste plastic for chemical recycling.

He then recommended sorting systems for advanced recycling feedstock preparation—including bale wire removers, bale liberators, elliptical/ballistic separators, conveyors, and optical sorters, etc.—noting that significant mechanical processing of materials must must be done before they are sent through optical sorters so they are fed the right way, in the right size, and without fines.

Schellati focused on the characterization of materials and using flexible, modular equipment and AI capabilities to adapt to changing feedstock. “When you combine these things, you end up with a lower-cost sensor that can essentially update over time, provide you with a number of secondary characteristics, and ideally be employed liberally throughout the plant to give you a really clean idea of what’s going into the [advanced recycling] reactor and what supply quality you’re actually receiving.”

He also explained how tracking of all materials allows a company to extricate all of the value out of the non-target feedstock as well and resell those materials as commodities—in effect using “every part of the buffalo.”

He noted that “having that kind of data-driven mentality not only allows you to manage your feedstock strategy more effectively, but it also gives you a more advanced set of capabilities in terms of getting real-time daily and weekly operational status, understanding yield, understanding purity, also understanding if things are going wrong in your plant.”

Plastic waste requires a ‘moonshot’ solution

Another speaker who emphasized the role data can play in driving advanced recycling was Rey Banatao, director, project lead for X, the Moonshot Factory, more commonly referred to as Google X. Founded by data and AI company Google, Google X is a research lab that develops and launches technologies to tackle some of the world’s most difficult problems. Driven by its chief sustainability officer, Kate Brandt, Google’s circularity mission is to maximize the reuse of finite resources across Google’s own product and operations, internally, “but most importantly, we want to enable others to do the same,” said Banatao.

Upon learning that the top sustainability search term is recycling—“over things like climate or electric vehicles or GHGs,” said Banatao—Google saw an opportunity  to contribute to circularity.

“As we leaned in further, these are the three areas that were communicated back to us. First is obviously the waste industry is a data-sparse industry in our opinion compared to other areas we work in. There’s not a lot of information out there about the quality of waste, where it’s at, how to get your hands on it, and pricing, and where it ends up once it’s recycled. So the ability to identify information and follow that material through its lifecycle is important. Then we looked at the recycling technologies themselves, and that’s why we’re really interested in advanced recycling. There’s a lot of room for improvement.

Rey Banatao, director, project lead for X, the Moonshot Factory, or Google X

“There are a lot of nascent technologies, and even in mature technologies like pyrolysis or even mechanical recycling, there’s still room for improvement. So how can we contribute our resources and time to help accelerate improvements in recycling processes? Then lastly, all of this work and investigation generates data. How can we leverage that to provide traceability, better accountability through the industry?”

As Banatao explained, Google X’s “moonshots” are big ideas requiring radical solutions. “That means the problem is so big and oftentimes is a systems problem, meaning it’s not just one intervention or solution that’s going to solve that. It’s going to require all of us working together,” he explained. “We wouldn’t be working on advanced recycling if we didn’t think it was going to be highly impactful and game changing, because we go after a 10x impact.”

Read about four brands that are using advanced recycled content in their packaging in this article, “Global Brands Experiment with Advanced Recycled Materials.”

Google X’s solution is using data to build a molecular data platform, aggregating the information on its infrastructure, which includes Google Cloud and Google AI, and using the data to create dynamic change. It uses analytical chemistry to train machine learning to optimize the recycling process. “We’ve been partnering with folks in this industry for a while now, and the first experiments were on optimizing feedstock for [pyrolysis] oil quality,” Banato explained.

Google X has tested its sorting technology in the real world, deploying it in a MRF on the West Coast to divert all landfill-bound material. It’s then sorting mechanical residue and for different advanced recycling processes. As Banatao shared, Google X is now “heading into industrial scale with some of the biggest reactors in the world.”

EPR’s role in supporting advanced recycling

Feedstock is not the only concern, however. The potential impact of plastic legislation on the advanced recycling industry is also still unknown. “Policy is really going to impact the whole fundamental possibility of what’s going to happen with plastic pyrolysis,” said Anthony Schiavo, senior director of Lux Research Inc.

In his presentation, Schiavo shared research from Lux on four key areas of regulation and predicted the future of policy for pyrolysis based on whether these policies consider pyrolysis as recycling. The four areas were the United Nation’s international legally binding agreement on plastics pollution, India’s plastic waste management rules, the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation [PPWR], and U.S. state and federal agency action.

Schiavo’s conclusion: “The EU is really the only group that’s moving towards a significant recognition for plastic pyrolysis as a form of recycling. We really don’t see momentum for the recognition of plastic pyrolysis as a form of recycling anywhere else globally, with the exception of Japan, where the laws are very loose. With this in mind, I think we need to be thinking about scaling and developing plastic pyrolysis in a landscape where there is not a lot of regulation.”

In his overview of extended producer responsibility laws for packaging in the U.S., Dan Felton, executive director of packaging advocacy organization AMERIPEN, shared that among the goals of EPR are—“depending on who you ask”—to fund existing and expanded composting recycling programs, drive greater packaging recovery and recycling, including through innovation, and help companies meet their sustainability goals.

Of the five states that currently have EPR legislation, Felton shared that Maine, Colorado, Oregon, and Minnesota are “silent” on advanced recycling, while California is “unclear.” Of the four that have not addressed it, he said that “AMERIPEN takes the view that if they’re not saying anything about it, that’s probably a good thing at this point.”

While AMERIPEN doesn’t have a position on advanced recycling, Felton said that the organization never wants to see any technology “taken off the table that will eventually potentially lead to restrictions or bans on any packaging material, plastics included.”

Dan Felton of AMERIPEN and Jennifer Ronk of Dow

Jennifer Ronk, senior sustainability manager for Dow, emphasized the important role of EPR in enabling the collection and sorting of more materials. “We have whole new ways to look at how these materials can work if we start thinking about what’s possible because of these technologies,” she said. “But unfortunately, we’ve run up against a lot of barriers. Collection has been hard, and sorting is hard. How do we get these materials back so that we can use them? That’s something policy is good at doing, when you can see a system that makes sense, it helps build that future we’re trying to get to.”

For his part, Adam Peer, senior director, Packaging, for the American Chemistry Council (ACC), focuses on educating policymakers to ensure that advanced recycling is included, or at least not prohibited, in different public policies.

Of the 50 U.S. states, 25 have laws in place that enable advanced recycling, meaning they’ve defined it as manufacturing, rather than waste management, which results in fewer regulations. Some others are adamantly opposed to advanced recycling.

Busting advanced recycling myths

According to Robert Flores, VP of Sustainability for Berry Global, one way of overcoming negative press and opposition by policymakers is by talking about the successes achieved with advanced recycling. According to Flores, plastic packaging converter Berry is the largest resin buyer in the world, with access to more advanced recycling than any other company.

Over the past several years, Berry has worked with several CPGs and QSRs to deliver packaging with PCR content derived from advanced recycling. The first publicly announced commercial application was a plastic tub for Philadelphia cream cheese in Europe, followed by Heinz Beans Snap Pots, a project done in collaboration with Tesco whereby store takeback material is being used to create the packaging. Another is beverage cups for Wendy’s Restaurants that use 20% PCR from advanced recycling across the entire line.

Berry is working with LyondellBasell to produce beverage cups for Wendy’s that use 20% PCR from advanced recycling across the entire line.

Flores also alluded to a number of other customers who are reluctant to publicize their use of the materials. “So you say, why wouldn’t these companies want to announce it?” inquired Flores. “Well, one of the key issues we’re facing is pushback on advanced recycling.”

The pushback is coming, he said, from publicity proclaiming advanced recycling isn’t real, as well as misconceptions around the technology, including that it emits harmful pollutants. “We’re telling them [partners and NGOs] that their thoughts about air emissions are overblown,” he says. “I always tell them, ‘I used to work in the chemical industry, and at my job, I had to wear a respirator because there were concerns about what I would breath in. Whereas, when you visit advanced recyclers, you don’t have to wear respirators. The air is clean.’”

He referenced advanced recycler Alterra, which hosted a tour of its advanced recycling facility during the summit, saying “they’re basically operating at less than 10% of their air permit.”

There is also pushback on the use of mass-balance accounting as a way to quantify the amount of advanced-recycled PCR used in a package. Mass balance is a certified protocol that tracks the amount of recycled materials used in manufacturing processes. It’s used to measure the amount of plastic building blocks from advanced recycling that are mixed with traditional materials to create new products. 

Read this related article, “Heinz Makes Good Use of Tesco-Collected, Advanced Recycled PCR.”

Explained Flores, it allows chemical companies to mix circular feedstocks from advanced recycling with fossil feedstocks on existing assets. “Ultimately, the winning point for everyone is that we’re not the first ones to use this,” he said. “It’s a method already in use by sustainable forestry, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, tea, and other industries.”

The final pushback Flores mentioned were questions on the life-cycle analysis of advanced recycling. However, he notes, the first thorough LCA he saw was from BASF, which showed there was a significant greenhouse gas savings with pyrolysis versus an alternative system. An LCA from Closed Loop Partners shows a reduction in GHGs across all advanced recycling technology categories.

In conclusion, Flores presented a call to action to dispel the myths surrounding advanced recycling: “We need to do a better job of telling our story because right now the anti-plastic groups, the ones that want plastic go away as a whole, they’re out there, they’re being very vocal, and they’re also spread across the nation. If we don’t tell our story, they’re the ones that really paint the picture.

“We can also talk to our officials locally. We need to change this narrative. And just like visiting the [Alterra] plant today, you see it is real, and you see that material going to resin producers, and you see the products that ultimately end up on the shelf or in the QSRs. There are many successes. We just need to tell those more.”   PW