Lorain County will receive $300,000 from Ohio EPA to go toward tire shredding equipment.

The Lorain County Solid Waste Management District in Ohio has been awarded a $300,000 grant from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to help it purchase a shredder, portable sidewall cutter, alligator shears, mulch shredder and other equipment to process collected scrap tire.

The grant is one of 18 announced by the Ohio EPA tied to recycling, waste diversion and litter collection efforts. The combined value of the grants is $1.4 million.

Other recycling- and diversion-related grants include: $200,000 to the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste Management District and Waste Management to purchase a glass breaker and recycled glass cleaning system; nearly $175,000 to the Portage County Solid Waste District for a recycling collection truck; $160,000 to the city of Avon Lake (also in Lorain County) and Westlake, Ohio-plastics compounder Geon Performance Solutions to purchase recycling equipment; $100,000 to Lake-Geauga Habitat for Humanity to purchase two box trucks for recycling events; $100,000 to the Mahoning County Solid Waste Management District to help purchase a shredder, auger, biofilter and other recycling equipment; $96,000 to the city of Elyria (in Lorain County) to purchase a chipper, pick-up truck and recycling equipment for green waste processing; $60,000 to Holden Forests and Gardens in Lake County to help construct compost bays to recycle organic materials; and nearly $56,000 to Aluminum Cans for Burned Children to purchase a box truck for recycling events.

Several of the smaller grants went to litter cleanup efforts organized by not-for-profit groups in various Northeast Ohio cities.

The goal is to help stop over half a million pieces of plastic from entering the landfill or other streams.

PureCycle Technologies Inc., Orlando, Florida, and the Jacksonville Jaguars are teaming up to recycle more than 500,000 pieces of plastic waste at TIAA Bank Field. 

The Jacksonville Jaguars will implement PureCycle's PureZero waste program, a plastic waste program geared toward stadiums and entertainment venues. Part of the efforts in the first year of the partnership with the Jaguars will be focused on understanding the program's impact on the Jacksonville area.  

"PureCycle teamed up with the Jacksonville Jaguars to recycle more than 500,000 pieces of plastic waste to help end the single-use plastic cycle at TIAA Bank Field,” says Mike Otworth, CEO of PureCycle. “With the PureZero program, the Jacksonville Jaguars can help bring plastic waste full circle, helping stop game day plastic trash from being landfilled or flowing into our rivers and oceans."  

Polypropylene (PP) is a plastic found at stadiums across America that mostly goes unrecycled because leftover food and liquid make it difficult and costly to recycle. PureCycle will collect, recycle and remove impurities from souvenir stadium cups and food containers to create an ultra-pure recycled plastic that can be recycled repeatedly.  

"Alongside citywide facility solutions and other stadium partners of the Jacksonville Jaguars, we're eager to get the PureCycle program implemented in Jacksonville and do our part to reduce plastic waste,” says Ryan Prep, vice president of facilities for the Jaguars. “We hope our fans will join us this season by seeking out recycling containers around the stadium."  

PureCycle's partnership with the Jacksonville Jaguars aims to reduce the amount of plastic waste generated at more than 50 games and events. It will also help stock concessions with PP products, creating a circular recycling system and an innovative sustainability plan for the team. 

As the EPA considers regulating PFAS, SCS Engineers helps bring clarity and advice to those operating landfills that may become subject to regulations.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are under the sharp gaze of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which plans to determine how toxic the substance is.

There now is data for about 14 PFAS constituents, including some of the newer ones commonly known as GenX. Based on toxicity data, the EPA supports the development of standards for risk-based concentration levels and risk screening levels for ingesting PFAS. The state of Maine announced earlier this year a ban on PFAS in landfill leachate.

The EPA is considering whether to propose that perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanicsulfonic acid (PFOS) be classified as hazardous PFAS constituents under Appendix VIII of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), giving the federal agency the authority to require corrective action for PFAS and RCRA sites.

It is with this background that SCS Engineers is hosting a webinar featuring a panel of speakers clarifying the recent plans, headlines and health advisories surrounding PFAS, as well as sharing some promising leachate treatment options. SCS’s engineers, scientists and landfill operations experts will be featured during the forum and can be available for follow-up after the 2 p.m. July 21 webinar.

Landfill operators who manage waste streams, leachate and sludges possibly laden with PFAS can attend this event and learn about the latest regulatory changes and proposals surrounding PFAS.

Certificates of attendance are available for attendees who registered on Zoom and attended the live session.

European company establishes partnerships to close loops for tarps, mattress foam and other products.

German-based polymers producer Covestro AG says it is working to “align itself comprehensively with circularity and help make it the global guiding principle” as it develops technologies to reuse plastics and return them to the value cycle, “often in close cooperation with partners.”

The goal of one new collaboration, with Switzerland-based backpack and messenger bag producer Freitag, is “the unlimited recycling of truck tarps, based on thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPUs),” Covestro says. At the end of their useful life, the tarps are to be recycled via a chemical recycling process and used for new tarps or other products, the firm says.

Covestro says its focus to date has been on proven mechanical recycling to obtain materials. More recently, it sees chemical recycling processes, in which polymer molecules are broken down chemically, as a way forward.

Calling mechanical recycling “particularly suitable for polycarbonates,” Covestro says numerous corresponding products from Covestro are already on the market, including polycarbonate blends for IT applications with up to 75 percent recycled material.

“In addition, new plastic products are designed from the outset to be easier to recycle at the end of their useful life,” the company says.

A consortium of industrial partners in the Circular Foam project is researching processes for the chemical recycling of rigid polyurethane foam, according to Covestro, which says it is guiding that effort.

Polyurethanes (PU) and other thermoset products are difficult to mechanically recycled, according to Covestro, which calls chemical processes “the obvious choice” for PU. Covestro says it has developed an innovative technology for recovering both core raw materials in PU mattress foam as part of a research project with partners.

These materials, polyols and the isocyanate TDI, are used in the production of mattress foam. The precursor is recovered from the TDI, and both raw materials can be reused for the production of new foam after reprocessing. “The results achieved to date are being tested in a pilot plant at the Leverkusen [German] site,” the company says, and Covestro has introduced the Evocycle brand name for the project.

Covestro is cooperating with recycling firm Interseroh, an Alba Group company, to developed collection and processing of recyclables so they ultimately can be supplied to Covestro for chemical recycling. Covestro is pursuing a similar goal in its cooperation with the French environmental protection organization Eco-mobilier, which specializes in the collection and recycling of old furniture.

The Circular Foam research project consists of 22 industrial partners from nine countries, coordinated by Covestro, says the firm. “Over the next four years, experts from science, industry, and society want to develop a comprehensive solution model for the waste management and recycling of such foams,” Covestro says.

The company estimates the Circular Foam effort has the potential to divert for recycling up to 1 million metric tons of waste material per year in Europe.

European firm is making base chemicals with discarded materials content, including plastic scrap and organic materials.

Borealis AG, an Austrian-based chemicals firm, says it is strengthening its EverMinds circular product line by offering Borvida, which it calls “a range of sustainable base chemicals.”

The product line will initially be based on what Borealis calls non-food waste biomass, and chemically recycled plastic scrap. In the future it may also draw from atmospheric carbon capture materials.

The Borvida portfolio will offer base chemicals or cracker products (such as ethylene, propylene, butene and phenol) with International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC) Plus-certified sustainable content from Borealis sites in Finland, Sweden and Belgium.

“We are committed to helping to solve the climate crisis through offering credible and sustainable solutions,” says Thomas Van De Velde, a Borealis senior vice president “With the Borvida portfolio, we’re enabling our customers to respond to the growing market demand for sustainably-produced base chemicals without compromising on quality or efficiency. With launching our Borvida portfolio, we are continuously striving towards reinventing essentials for sustainable living.” 

The portfolio will initially consist of Borvida B, made from nonfood waste biomass, and Borvida C, from chemically recycled waste. In the future, the range may include Borvida A, sourced from atmospheric carbon capture.

The company labels Borvida as complementary and as a building block to Bornewables, a portfolio of polyolefins based on renewably-sourced second generation feedstocks, and Borcycle, which offers circular polyolefins produced from mechanically and chemically recycled plastic scrap.

The basis of the Borvida portfolio is mass balance, a chain of custody model designed to enable sustainable content to be tracked, traced and verified through the entire value chain.

The company says Borvida can be used for a several different polymer and chemical applications, such as in the production of polyolefins (PO), polycarbonates, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), super absorbent polymer (SAP) and other chemicals that are used for various end applications including coatings, plasticizers, adhesives, automotive, electronics, lubricants, detergents, appliances and sports equipment.

Borealis lists Finland-based Neste Oyj and German-based Covestro as strategic partners in the effort. Introduced on a smaller scale in early 2020, Covestro was an early renewable base chemicals customer. “The use of alternative sustainable raw materials is one important pillar of our strategic ambition to become fully circular,” says Frank Dörner of Covestro. “The new product line is a good example for joint solutions, another strategic pillar, in order to establish new and reliable supply chains creating benefits for our customers.”

Jeroen Verhoeven of Neste Renewable Polymers and Chemicals says, “Circularity is the key to more sustainable polymers and chemicals. The strategic cooperation for more circular solutions between Borealis and Neste has been a success story in the past already. Now we are looking forward to adding another chapter to the book and supporting the industry with this new portfolio of more sustainable base chemicals.”