Advocacy groups say by phasing out plastic in some applications the state’s litter problem can be addressed.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed Senate Bill 54, which creates several amendments to the state’s Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989 and is designed to address plastic litter issues and low recycling rates in the Golden State, into law.
The text of SB 54 sets reporting requirements for transfer station and “disposal facility” operators to provide “periodic information to the [state] on the types and quantities of materials that are disposed of, sold or transferred to other recycling or composting facilities or specified entities.”
Trade associations such as the National Waste & Recycling Association and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) likely will seek clarification on the reporting requirements and how they affect operators of transfer stations, material recovery facilities (MRFs) and other locations where discarded materials are handled in the recycling chain.
The bill also states, “The California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989 regulates the disposal, management and recycling of, among other solid waste, plastic packaging containers and single-use foodware accessories.”
At least one advocacy group sees this as the death knell for plastic in several applications in the state. Washington-based Oceana calls the measure “the strongest plastic source reduction policy in the nation” and “the first state law to mandate source reduction of all single-use plastic packaging and foodware, from detergent bottles and bubble wrap to cups and utensils.”
According to Oceana, the law requires packaging producers and product makers to “slash their single-use plastic packaging and foodware by at least 25 percent by 2032 and implement the first reuse and refill mandates in the nation.”
Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics campaign director, says, “Oceana commends the state legislature and the governor for realizing the urgency of the plastic pollution crisis and taking strong action to protect California's coast and communities. California’s effort to aggressively tackle plastic pollution at the source and require companies to shift from throwaway plastic to reusable and refillable alternatives sends a strong signal to the nation, and the world."
The Washington-based American Chemistry Council (ACC) previously told Recycling Today it had concerns about the future of chemical recycling investments and other unintended consequences should the legislation be passed.
Joshua Baca, vice president of plastics at the ACC, released a statement saying the ACC is pleased that the anti-plastics ballot initiative has been withdrawn and SB 54 was signed into law.
“Negotiating SB 54 over the last 18 months has not been an easy process," he says. "We appreciate the hard work of Sen. Ben Allen and his staff to get us to this resolution. The law is not perfect, as we outlined in our previous statement.
“However, SB 54 is a better outcome than the withdrawn anti-plastics ballot initiative. Had that initiative passed it would have cost Californians an estimated $9 billion annually but only invest approximately 30 percent of that to improve recycling in the state."
Baca adds, “Now we will focus on working with lawmakers, regulators and other stakeholders to help ensure the implementation of SB 54 matches its intent: eliminating plastic waste and improving plastics circularity while minimizing costs on Californians.”
He continues, “Petitioners of the ballot initiative released a statement yesterday inaccurately questioning our intent to work collaboratively on the implementation of SB 54. Nobody got everything they wanted in SB 54, but we remain steadfast in our belief that all stakeholders can do more to benefit California by working on constructive solutions rather than attacking each other. We want to be a partner in sustainability so society can retain the benefits plastics provide to our modern lives while ending plastic waste in our environment.”
Oceana stresses the pollution control aspects of the legislation, with Tara Brock, Oceana’s Pacific counsel, commenting, “Single-use plastic foodware and food packaging products are consistently among six of the top 10 types of items most commonly picked up during annual beach cleanups across California. Voters are concerned and want change.”
The Washington-based American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), representing that sector, has tweeted it is “pleased California policymakers [have] taken a first-of-its-kind approach to extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation that recognizes the success of paper recycling.”
The AF&PA’s tweet says SB 54 “provides an off-ramp for industries like paper that have already stepped up and made the investments necessary to achieve a high recycling rate.”
“The paper recycling rate in the United States reached a record of 68 percent in 2021, and California’s new law recognizes this,” adds Natalie Urban, a spokesperson for the AF&PA.
ISRI also released a statement July 1 voicing its support for the legislation, saying it is "a positive step forward in the strengthening of post-consumer plastics recycling."
ISRI adds, "The bill not only ensures recycling access throughout the state of California, which is critical to increasing recycling rates, but also provides necessary support for those recycled materials that do not yet have an adequate level of end market demand to allow for economically self-sufficient recycling. We applaud Sen. Allen for including an off-ramp for producer responsibility upon maturity of the end market for a particular recycled material. ISRI appreciates the commitment and years of consensus-building that Sen.Ben Allen and the cosponsors of the bill put into this effort.
"We look forward to continued conversations and welcome discussions with the sponsors, ISRI and our members in California on further ways to improve upon the legislation to protect California recycling markets and ensure a healthy recycling infrastructure," the association adds.
The Ecology Center in Berkeley, California, says several environmental organizations, including the Ecology Center, provided input to the legislation, adding that it establishes guardrails to ensure compliance.
Martin Bourque, executive director of the Ecology Center says, “The industry-run producer responsibility organization (PRO) that this law creates will require more watchdogging than ever to ensure it does not follow age-old industry tricks, false promises and greenwashing. We are satisfied that CalRecycle will have the necessary authority to ensure the PRO lives up to its legal requirements, and we will be watching to make sure they do.”
*This article was updated July 1 to add comments from Joshua Baca of the ACC, Martin Bourque of the Ecology Center and ISRI.
Dustin Olson will serve as the company’s next CEO.
PureCycle Technologies Inc., Orlando, Florida, has announced three leadership changes effective Aug. 5, expected to propel the company's transition to a leading global manufacturing and technology company.
Mike Otworth, chairperson of the board of directors and CEO of PureCycle, will resign to return to Innventure, a company he helped found. Dustin Olson, PureCycle's current chief operating officer and chief manufacturing officer, is being promoted to the role of CEO and joining the board of directors. According to Purecycle, Olson has been with the group since 2021 leading manufacturing and operations.
Dan Coombs, a current member of PureCycle's board of directors, will be appointed, upon Otworth's departure, to the executive chairperson of the board of directors.
"I am an entrepreneur at heart, and am excited to see PureCycle's progress over the last seven years,” Otworth says. “Taking PureCycle from an early concept to a publicly-traded company has been an honor. Dustin has proven to be effective, eager and has an unprecedented work ethic. Dustin will lead this team and company into the next phase and will make PureCycle teams past and present proud."
Olson has more than 20 years of plastics, petrochemical and refining experience in the United States, Europe and China. Before joining PureCycle, he led multiple LyondellBasell commercial and operational businesses, delivering substantial growth in volume and profitability.
"I am honored and humbled with this appointment as PureCycle's next CEO,” Olson says. “I am excited for the opportunity to lead PureCycle during this important time. We have a strong and dedicated team to help our efforts in scaling our technology and addressing the planet's plastic waste crisis."
Coombs, a former executive vice president for LyondellBasell and current member of PureCycle's board of directors, has industry and business experience with new technology facility startups. He also has a strong background in supercritical fluids. He will consult Olson's teams through the startup and initial operations.
Jeanette McMurtry has worked for SaaS companies and Fortune 500 brands such as Sony, Xerox, American Express and more.
Denver-based Starlight Software Solutions, a software solutions firm serving the waste management and recycling industry, has appointed Jeanette McMurtry as chief marketing officer.
McMurtry joins Starlight Software Solutions as the company says it poises for rapid growth owing to the completion of its cloud-based system designed to serve the hauling and recycling sectors. This includes roll-off dumpsters to the commercial, residential, portable toilet and municipal reporting.
Starlight says it offers a robust suite of software as a service (SaaS) solutions that accelerate efficiency across dispatch, inventory, route management, customer and contractor change orders, driver productivity and more.
“Jeanette brings a new level of marketing expertise to Starlight, helping us strengthen our brand as well as our lead generation and sales processes,” says Bill Bradley, CEO and founder of Starlight Software. “Her ability to create and drive winning marketing strategies and campaigns has quickly boosted our pipeline and set us up to exceed our growth goals for 2022 and 2023.”
McMurtry’s background includes marketing strategy, campaigns and execution. She has worked for SaaS companies, Fortune 500 brands such as Sony, Xerox, American Express and more. Starlight says she has helped companies double sales revenue in short order and increase lead generation and account value.
The company says her success is rooted in her approach to psychology-based marketing, which is the focus of her prior public speaking career, 15-year monthly marketing column and three international books published for Wiley and McGraw-Hill. She is the author of Marketing for Dummies fifth edition, released in 2017, and the sixth edition, which will release in the fall.
“One of the most fulfilling aspects of my career is working with highly talented, innovative teams to bring new and needed products to market," McMurtry says. “I am honored to be part of Starlight Software Solutions and help accelerate growth for one of the most robust products in waste management that is a true game-changer for the entire industry."
A range of products was made using injection molding through to conventional sheet extrusion and thermoforming.
Nextloopp, the global multiparticipant project that is using commercially proven technologies that include markers to separate food-grade polypropylene, or PP, and decontamination technologies designed to ensure compliance with food-grade standards in the EU and the USA, has completed the first full-scale packaging production trials using its PPristine food-grade resins.
Mannok Pack, a leading thermoformed food packaging manufacturer in the U.K. and Ireland, ran the trials at its County Cavan facility in Ireland, producing a range of products through injection molding with an in-mold label through conventional sheet extrusion and thermoforming. According to Nextloop, the finished packs showed “excellent visual and processing characteristics with only minor but acceptable product variations between the 30 percent rPP pack and the virgin PP pack.”
Mannok General Manager Mark McKenna says the packaging made with rPP demonstrated the huge potential for this project. He adds that he feels confident the project is poised to help the industry move toward closing the loop on food-grade PP, according to a news release from Nextloopp.
Helene Roberts, CEO of U.K.-based custom packaging manufacturer Robinson PLC, adds, “We were delighted with the results of these initial trials using the food-grade rPP material from Nextloopp that produced very similar aesthetics and performance to our current virgin-based products and little disruption to the manufacturing line.”
Professor Edward Kosior, founder of London-based global sustainability consultancy Nextek Ltd. and Nextloopp, says he was pleased with the trial results, describing PP as the “most prolific food-grade polymers.”
As Nextloopp finalizes the dossiers for its application to European Food Safety Authority and U.S. Food and Drug Administration for food-grade accreditation, it also is working in with industry bodies to advise on new design guidelines for food-grade circular recycling based on findings from these trials.
Shuttered for two years, the Coastal Resources of Maine facility could divert from landfills up to 80 percent of the municipal solid waste it receives.
A municipal solid waste facility (MSW) in Hampden, Maine, could soon be purchased by the Municipal Review Committee Inc. (MRC), a nonprofit organization overseeing MSW issues for 115 municipalities in coastal Maine.
During a June 29 MRC meeting, Eaton Peabody attorney Shawn Doil, representing the committee, said two lienholders who had been objecting to the sale have agreed in principle to a resolution.
The organization has departed from a prior plan to seek financing from its member towns and cities, MRC President Karen Fussell said.
“We’re actually working with a number of good potential private sector partners that we might work with to share ownership and operation of the facility,” she said.
Doil said she anticipates the sale should close sometime in the next several weeks.
Closed since May 2020, the Coastal Resources of Maine waste-to-energy facility would provide MSW collection and recycling for residents in the 115 towns the MRC serves. Coastal Resources of Maine LLC is subsidiary of Fiberight, whose technology is in the Hampden facility.
For the past two years, the MRC has monitored and maintained the shuttered 144,000-square-foot facility, paid its utilities and protected the equipment within, according to an MRC document on the plan to buy the facility, all while seeking a buyer and operator for the facility. However, several interested parties were unable to demonstrate the technical and financial capabilities necessary to own and operate the recycling facility.
The MRC anticipates the final purchase price of the facility will range from $1 million to $1.5 million, but the startup cost could be around $20 million.
An MRC overview of the facility says it was the first U.S. recycling facility with an integrated pulper that can process items such as dirty paper plates, coffee cups and pizza boxes in addition to more routine recyclables. The facility is capable of diverting from landfill 60 percent to 80 percent of the material it receives.
The MRC says in its redevelopment plan for the facility that it should be able to turn a profit at full operation, which would include an investment of up to $5 million, but market conditions for recycling commodities and cellulose pulp also have improved markedly since the May 2020 closure which was around the time of the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.