Collection, Processing, and End Markets
Boat Film Wrap Recovery Pilot
The Great Lakes, one the largest freshwater systems in the world, is a beautiful and vast natural resource, making it a top destination for sailors and boaters. But, because of the Great Lakes region’s climate, winterizing recreational boating vessels is a must in most parts of the region, requiring millions of pounds of valuable plastic film to be used as boat wrap in order to safely protect these vessels from snow and ice damage, material that is almost universally landfilled every Spring.
Building on lessons learned in Ohio and Michigan, as well as along the East Coast, this multi-year pilot project, with its initial focus in Illinois, will bring the plastic value chain together with state government agencies, local marina partners and boaters to close the loop and create a Great Lakes circular economy for boat shrink wrap film.
Contact us to learn more by clicking the button below!
Partners
Return-to-Retail Plastic Bag and Film Recycling Project
This project is leveraging the success of existing front-of-store drop-off and back-of-store plastic collection programs to further increase the recycling of polyethylene plastic bags, wraps, and other films in the Great Lakes region using a new Return-to-Retail (R2R) Recycling Guide developed as part of the Circular Great Lakes initiative. If you are a retailer with operations in the region, reach out to us today to get involved.
Partners
Roughly 3.0 million additional tons of this plastic material, worth over US$400 million, will need to be recovered and recycled in the Great Lakes region to reach the US EPAs 50% recycling rate by 2030, which will require 60% increase processing capacity.
This project is testing the ability of Secondary Material Recovery Facilities (MRF) to reprocess core recyclables and other low-volume and difficult-to-sort plastics, such as polyethylene films, in primary MRF residual waste to divert this material to end-markets instead of landfill.
