Dive Brief:
- Republic Services has opened a 300,000-square-foot plastic processing complex in Indianapolis. It’s meant to meet demand from recycled content laws and brands by offering recycled resin for food-grade packaging and other applications.
- The complex includes a polymer center, which will process recycled PET, HDPE and polypropylene collected from homes and businesses in Indiana and nearby states, the company says. That polymer center is co-located with Blue Polymers, a joint venture between Republic and plastic producer Ravago that turns HDPE and PP into custom recycled pellets for customers.
- The Indianapolis polymer center and Blue Polymers facilities are meant to work together to produce more than 175 million pounds of recycled plastics each year and employ about 125 people, Republic says. This is the second polymer center for Republic, which opened its Las Vegas location in late 2023.
Dive Insight:
Republic Services sees its new polymer center and Blue Polymers location as critical to solidifying its presence in the recycled content market. The Indiana location is meant to capitalize both on Republic’s robust presence in the curbside collection space in that state, as well as the state’s proximity to Midwestern converters and manufacturers, said Pete Keller, Republic’s vice president of recycling and sustainability.
“This is a big investment in circularity, in keeping that material in the value chain and in the market as long as possible,” he said.
Republic invested between $85 million and $90 million each for the polymer center and the Blue Polymers facility, Keller said. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management's Central Indiana Waste Diversion Pilot Project also provided a grant for the project, Republic said in a news release.
Republic also received tax credits from a group of Indianapolis job creation and development organizations, including the City of Indianapolis and the Indiana Economic Development Corp., based on the company's investment and job creation plans.
Republic expects to source materials for the Indianapolis polymer center from across the region, including Minneapolis, St. Louis, Memphis, Western Pennsylvania and Detroit, Keller said. Numerous Republic recycling facilities associated with various municipal contracts are included within that footprint, he said.
At the Indiana polymer center PET will be shredded and washed to produce flake that will be sent mainly to manufacturers to make beverage bottles. “We see that as the highest and best use. As a bottle, we have an opportunity to capture it a second, third, fourth time,” he said.
The HDPE and PP will be sorted by color and type, then sent to Blue Polymers, he said. The plastic is then compounded, blended, extruded and pelletized based on customers’ specific needs. Blue Polymers is expected to handle “batch campaigns” instead of continuous processing, he said. “If a customer wanted 30% virgin, 70% recycled, we can make those blends for customers,” Keller said. “We'll also do a color sort so we can also make custom color blends at Blue for specific customers.”
Republic expects to sell its end product to a range of customers, including Coca-Cola, which already is a customer for plastics from Republic’s Las Vegas polymer center. Recycled content demand is expected to stay high in coming years, he said, even as some brands are lowering their own voluntary recycled content goals. Last year, Coca-Cola announced it would ease off some of its sustainability initiatives, including lowering its recycled content goals.
Keller said Republic anticipates that recycled content laws will drive continued demand. California currently requires 25% recycled content in beverage bottles, and its state law calls for ramping up that rate in coming years. The state is a “massive market” that mandates manufacturers and brands to seek out recycled content, he said.
Most extended producer responsibility laws for packaging in the U.S. also have minimum content requirements, a feature that is expected to appear in future EPR bills that may pass, he added.
As Republic’s Indianapolis facility continues to ramp up operations, it is applying lessons it learned from operating its Las Vegas polymer center, Keller said. The Indianapolis facility has more “elbow room” and several more optical sorters and bunkers, he said.
The Vegas center also processes plastics such as PE and PET. It is “dabbling a little bit” with Nos. 3-7 mixed plastics to “just to see how much value and yield we can get from those types of materials,” he said. The idea is to be able to respond to market demands for emerging materials, he said. For example, “there's no market today for styrene, per se, but we've had a lot of interest from the people that manufacture styrene” to possibly use it in packaging.
Republic is also continuing work on its second Blue Polymers facility, which is scheduled to open in late 2025 in Buckeye, Arizona. It’s expected to accept materials from Republic’s Las Vegas polymer center. Another combined polymer center and Blue Polymers complex is in the works in the Northeastern U.S.,
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