Category: Environmental

Kickoff highlight includes EGLE’s award of record-setting combined total of $4.9 million in Renew Michigan recycling grants to 45 community, business and nonprofit recipients in almost every region of the state

LANSING – Leaders of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) joined today with the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, bipartisan lawmakers and Meijer to announce NextCycle Michigan, hailed as the largest collaborative effort in state history to spark the state’s “recycling and recovery” economy.

As part of the NextCycle Michigan initiative, EGLE announced that already in 2020 and 2021, $97 million is being committed to recycling projects through partners that in addition to Meijer include: Henry Ford Health System, GFL Environmental, Carton Council of North America, Goodwill Industries, Keurig Dr Pepper, Foodservice Packaging Institute, U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Development, Emterra Environmental, Washtenaw County, Great Lakes Tissue and more than 30 Michigan companies, organizations and nonprofits.

“The NextCycle Michigan Initiative and Renew Michigan grants marks the largest push in state history to promote recycling activities that divert materials from Michigan landfills, boost local economies, and support Gov. Whitmer’s climate change priorities through reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” EGLE Director Liesl Clark said during a virtual press conference.

Emterra, for example, is opening this month a new $9 million recycling sorting facility built through a collaboration with the cities of Lansing and East Lansing. The facility will use state-of-the-art robotics to process recyclables from more than 676,000 households across 12 counties in and around the Capital-area, increasing access to recycling throughout the region and creating new jobs in Lansing. The materials from the Emterra facility will then go to businesses like Great Lakes Tissue, in Cheboygan, Michigan, which turns old cartons into toilet paper sold in grocery stores across the state, including Meijer.

In addition, to highlight NextCycle Michigan’s launch, EGLE announced a record-setting combined total of more than $4.9 million in Renew Michigan grants to recipients in 45 communities statewide that will support the initiative.

“The funding is part of EGLE’s strategy to support recycling infrastructure, improve the quality of recyclable materials, and promote market development using the Renew Michigan Fund, which was created in 2019 to bolster the state’s recycling efforts,” Clark said.

NextCycle Michigan represents “a first-of-its-kind partnership” that will help fund infrastructure investment to promote the development of markets for recycled materials and recycled products, including manufacturing, said EGLE Materials Management Division Director Liz Browne.

Michigan is among the first states in the U.S. to introduce this bold partnership that leverages state dollars with private investment to fund shovel-ready projects, state-of-the-art technology installation and innovation grants, Browne noted.

“Our aim is to spark the state’s “recycling and recovery” economy,” she said. “At EGLE, we know that recycling is one of the most important things you can do every day to make a positive difference for our environment and climate. But what many Michiganders often don’t realize is that recycling has become an essential tool in supporting our state’s local economies, businesses big and small, and major employers in the manufacturing sector.”

By turning waste materials into new products made in Michigan, EGLE and its partners plan to achieve the state’s goals of saving resources, protecting the climate and contributing to the prosperity of Michigan-based companies.

NextCycle Michigan is “uniquely exciting because this level of commitment and partnership to comprehensively promote recycling between Michigan’s private sector and state government has never happened before in our state’s history,” Browne said. “In fact, we believe NextCycle Michigan marks the greatest accomplishment in recycling since our state achieved its first-in-the-nation status by introducing the bottle bill law in 1976.”

Michigan Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Rich Studley praised EGLE for looking to build on that historic success by doing more than ever before with plastics, metal, paper and all forms of recyclable materials. Together with its partners, EGLE is planning to use public and private investment in Michigan's recycling system to put materials once destined for the landfill back into use in manufacturing.

“I am happy to speak today in support of the NextCycle initiative because this program will increase innovation, and overcome barriers that have traditionally hindered Michigan’s recycling rates in the past,” Studley said. “Our state decision-makers wisely understood that partnering with Michigan’s business community to help develop market driven solutions was critical to improving Michigan’s waste and materials management processes. The NextCycle initiative will be an important piece of accomplishing those goals.”

By helping to build-out domestic markets for recycled goods, Studley asserted that Michigan can help support key state industries like automotive, construction materials and paper product manufacturing, while also preserving the environment for the next generation. He pledged to encourage Michigan Chamber members to engage and collaborate across a diverse array of stakeholders to help regulators understand their needs, and bring solutions to the table.

“This is a great example of state policymakers from both sides of the aisle working together to support innovative technologies and solutions that will improve Michigan’s material management and increase the value of products that historically wound up in landfills,” Studley said.

Meijer routinely provides recycling solutions to its customers by offering plastic film recycling and drug-takeback programs, according to Vik Srinivasan, senior vice president for real estate and properties at Meijer. Every year, for example, Meijer keeps more than 100,000 tons of material from the landfill through recycling. Meijer also has food waste reduction programs in its stores and manufacturing facilities that recycle unused food into animal feed and compost.

“We’re proud to say that, since 2018, we’ve achieved more than a 95% waste diversion rate at our five food manufacturing facilities,” Srinivasan said. “But we still have a long way to go to reach our goals, which is why we’re excited to be partnering with EGLE in support of the NextCycle program.

“This program will help us find new ways to recycle some of the most challenging materials in our supply chain, which include packaged food waste from our stores and difficult-to-recycle materials in our distribution centers,” he added. “We look forward to our shared innovation not only to help us reach our sustainability goals, but also to help build the infrastructure for our successes to be replicated statewide.”

Gov. Whitmer and the state Legislature are committed to raising Michigan’s recycling rate to 30% by 2025 and ultimately reach 45% annually — Michigan’s current recycling rate is at 15%, the lowest in the Great Lakes region and among the nation’s lowest.

“To ensure we reach this goal, recycling across Michigan is receiving a major boost in 2021 through Renew Michigan grant funding,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, who serves the state’s 11^th Congressional District in southeast Michigan.

Among the grants Stevens unveiled in her region of the state were:

• Next Energy: $50,000 for an assessment of electric vehicle battery recycling system needs in Michigan.
• Battery Solutions: $75,000 for battery sorting technology upgrades.
• Schupan: $250,000 for equipment that empties packaging, allowing for additional containers to be recycled.
• Recycle Livingston (City of Howell): $282,504.80 for Howell drop-off site upgrades that will improve collection and processing capacity and worker health and safety conditions.
• City of Ypsilanti: $73,440 for recycling bins in downtown and public parks.
• City of Detroit: $20,000 for residential recycling carts, part of multi-year, on-going EGLE support of City of Detroit recycling program.
• Huron-Clinton Metroparks: $48,816 for plastic bottle recycling bins in Metroparks.
• The Resource Recovery and Recycling Authority of Southwest Oakland County: $32,000 for Novi drop-off site upgrades.
• MSU Recycling (MSU Recycling and Surplus Store): $170,000 for robotic sorting equipment that will improve drop-off recycling in the region, as well as worker health and safety conditions.
• Vartega: $100,000 for the production of new recycled thermoplastics products.
• Emterra Environmental: $250,000 for technology to produce cleaner glass material that will be used to make beverage containers and insulation.

The Legislature two years ago in a bipartisan move voted to increase EGLE’s funding for recycling projects from $2 million annually to $15 million per-year moving forward. The additional funds through Renew Michigan grants are being used to promote development of recycling markets, increase access to recycling opportunities, and support efforts to grow recycling at the local level, noted Republican state Sen. Wayne Schmidt of Traverse City.

“I was proud to be one of the members in the Michigan Legislature who voted to provide new funding to support recycling throughout our state,” Schmidt said. “Now, more than ever, Michigan residents view recycling as an essential public service.

“And during a time of social distancing because of COVID-19, when many nonessential employees are working remotely and commercial recycling is near an all-time low due to the coronavirus pandemic, producers see residential recycling programs as a critical part in the manufacturing supply chain so they can make their products from recycled content instead of new materials,” Schmidt said.

The Renew Michigan grant recipients in Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula that Schmidt announced today include:

• Great Lakes Tissue: $250,000 for technology that will recycle more types of containers into paper products.
• GFL Environmental: $100,000 for technology needed for cart and cup recycling.
• The Northeast Michigan Council of Governments: $55,000 to support collaborative efforts to secure a new recycling processing facility for the region.
• Emmet County: $150,000 for expansion of the food scraps collection program.
• Delta Solid Waste Management Authority: $600,000 for equipment needed to take advantage of the new recycling facility in Marquette that was built through a previous EGLE grant.
• Three Upper Peninsula townships (Ishpeming/Neguanee/Marquette Charter): $167,791 for residential recycling carts for residents of those three townships, with materials going to the new recycling facility in Marquette.
• Keweenaw Bay Indian Community: $20,000 for equipment to collect paper and cardboard needed by Michigan businesses like U.P. Paper.
• City of Alpena: $58,080 for recycling bins in public parks and government buildings.
• SEEDS: $75,000 for a study of how to optimize the organics recycling system in Northern Michigan.

EGLE is also announcing the launch of the next round of NextCycle Michigan Innovation Challenges and Renew Michigan recycling funding opportunities. Visit EGLE’s website at Michigan.gov/MIRecycles for details about recycling grants. Learn how to participate in NextCycle Michigan at NextCycle Michigan.

The NextCycle Michigan initiative and Renew Michigan grants align with EGLE’s national award-winning “Know It Before You Throw It” recycling education campaign featuring the Recycling Raccoon Squad. The aim of the campaign that began in 2019 is to increase recycling and promote best practices to reduce contaminated materials from going into recycling bins and drop-off sites.

From car parts to trash carts to pop bottles: Recycled plastics have a number of uses.

This story was originally published on the Detroit Free Press.

Essentially, everything you need to know about recycling a piece of household plastic you learned in elementary school.

“While it’s possible to find a new use for virtually all plastics, several factors can affect an individual type’s recyclability,” said Matt Flechter, recycling market development specialist with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE).

Most important, he explains, is to recognize the item’s shape.

“Containers such as shampoo bottles, milk jugs and yogurt cups or similar food tubs are the easiest to recycle and are in highest demand by recycling centers and U.S. manufacturers,” Flechter said.

The bottom line for Michigan households, he said, is to follow the advice EGLE is stressing in its new “Know It Before You Throw It” recycling education campaign: “Ask your local recycling provider what kinds of plastics it accepts and make sure to put only those in your recycling container,” Flechter said.

The shape of things to come

But while shape and size primarily determine what ultimately happens to the item after it’s thrown in a recycling bin – and even whether people should put it there in the first place – basic numbers remain part of the story.

Many consumers believe the little digit surrounded by the recycling symbol found on each plastic container indicates that the bottle or container is recyclable.

“What many people don’t realize is that those numbers merely represent the type of resin the piece of plastic is made of,” Flechter said. “They were never intended to provide recycling direction, although that’s what people have come to believe over the years.”

In fact, guidance from many recycling services has promoted that misleading messaging, he said.

“What they’ll typically tell households is that they’ll accept some combination of Nos. 1 through 7 plastics in their curbside pickup,” he said. “It’s done with the best of intentions to make it easier for consumers to understand plastics recycling. But it’s really not the most precise advice, and providers increasingly are beginning to focus more on size and shape versus numbers.”

Leaving the digital age

In the meantime, however, the numbers can still serve as a rough rule of thumb to promote proper plastics recycling. In general, items labeled as Nos. 1 and 2 are in strongest demand, followed by No. 5, while other plastics are harder to recover and have weaker markets.

Typically, No. 1 plastics – including soft drink, juice and water bottles – are made from polyethylene terephthalate, or what is commonly referred to as PET. The containers are easily recycled back into bottles and are sometimes used to make carpet, luggage and polyester.

No. 2 plastics – typically high-density polyethylene, or HDPE – often include Items such as laundry and shampoo bottles. They commonly are returned to the same use, but can also find their way into new trash containers, buckets and floor tiles.

Additionally, there is demand for polypropylene (PP) plastic, commonly known as No. 5 plastic. It often is used in yogurt and margarine tubs that are remade into other food containers.

Recyclers should also know that their local recycling service has every incentive to find a company that will somehow reuse whatever it takes in, said Dave Smith, recycling coordinator for the Michigan State University Surplus Store and Recycling Center, which collects and sorts all recyclable material on the East Lansing campus.

“You hear people say, ‘Well, it’s just going in the landfill anyway,’” he said. “But if you think about it logically, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for a recycler to collect nonrecyclable items. Otherwise, we’re just paying the cost for it to go into landfills. So if there are communities taking the material, people should feel fairly confident that it’s actually getting recycled.”

Furthermore, some plastics that aren’t suitable for curbside collection – including plastic grocery bags and film overwraps – are sometimes accepted at drop-off locations, Flechter said.

International policies impact local recycling

Plastics that consumers recycle first go to a materials recovery facility (MRF) that separates them for marketing to manufacturers or processors that shred or grind them into pellets for use by the ultimate product makers.

Traditionally, nonbottle plastics have been less likely than PET and HDPE bottles and containers to enter the U.S. recycling stream because they’re relatively harder to recover and sort, said Darren McDunnough, owner, president and CEO of McDunnough Inc., a Fenton-based recycler and compounder of post-industrial plastic, which is typically waste produced during manufacturing processes.

“It’s easy for workers who are doing the sorting at a MRF to identify a PET water bottle or [HDPE] detergent bottle,” McDunnough explained. “But [other resins are] more difficult to sort and separate. They’re products that are not readily identifiable visually when sorting by hand, so you have to implement and employ technology to segregate those materials.”

And the technology to separate many different types of plastic can prove expensive and raise the cost of accepting a broad range of plastics. That’s why most unsorted and nonbottle plastics recycled by U.S. consumers for years were shipped to China, which relied on low-wage hand sorting to separate recyclables.

But in 2018 China banned almost all plastic imports – prompting U.S. municipalities and other recycling service providers to invest in equipment such as infrared sensors that better identify each type of plastic.

It also gave rise to EGLE’s “Know It Before You Throw It” campaign, which beyond educating consumers about what can and can’t be recycled also stresses the importance of placing only clean items in recycling containers.

“Our ultimate goal is to create more jobs and a cleaner environment by bolstering Michigan’s recycling industry and infrastructure,” Flechter said. “Michigan residents can help make the system more efficient by properly recycling.”

Michigan manufacturers stepping up

Beyond recycling properly to support Michigan’s recycling businesses and collection programs, using consumer purchasing power to buy products made with recycled plastics will also bolster the demand for plastics collected at the curb in the long run, Flechter said.

Cascade Engineering, based outside Grand Rapids, is one company responding to the market shift by striving to incorporate more recycled material into its products.

In January, it unveiled its EcoCart, a waste container made of 10% post-consumer HDPE plastic - specifically bulky, rigid items recycled by U.S. consumers, such as laundry baskets that are picked up at the curb but are often difficult to recycle, said JoAnne Perkins, Cascade’s vice president of environmental systems and services.

Typically – other than their wheels, which are made of recycled containers – Cascade’s carts are manufactured from virgin, never-before-used plastic.

But Perkins was inspired to change that after hearing Brent Bell, a Waste Management executive, challenge attendees at a sustainability conference in Arizona last year to help find new uses for recyclable material that used to get shipped to China.

“It was effectively a challenge to create the ‘demand’ side of the recycling equation,” Perkins said. “With [China’s policies], we have a responsibility to create a demand for these products. I thought I could do more on my end.”

She tasked Cascade engineers with figuring out how much recyclable material could go into a cart without compromising cost or performance.

While they initially settled on 10%, the ultimate goal is to get to 25% recycled content, Perkins said.

“We’ve come a long way in a year, and I’m very proud of our engineers,” she said. “We’re starting to shift the market a little bit.”

This story was originally published on the Detroit Free Press.

While the holidays are a time to spread joy and happiness among family and friends, they’re also an opportunity to show Mother Nature a little love.

Americans create 25% more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day than any other time of year, according to statistics compiled by Stanford University.

The output includes boxes, packing materials, wrapping paper, electronics and disposable eating utensils. And although some of that holiday-related waste should go directly into the trash, much of it is recyclable.

But even among the hustle and bustle of holiday gatherings, it’s important to take the time to recycle the right way, said Matt Flechter, recycling market development specialist at the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE).

“We’re urging Michigan residents to be nice to the environment over the holidays by properly recycling whatever they can,” he said. “Sound recycling practices should never take a holiday.”

That’s a message that EGLE has been spreading since June, when it kicked off its statewide “Know It Before You Throw It” recycling education campaign featuring the Recycling Raccoon Squad.

Quality and quantity

EGLE’s primary goal is to improve the quality of materials people are putting into recycling containers by educating them about best recycling practices. At the same time, EGLE is aiming to boost the quantity of material recycled by doubling the state’s recycling rate to 30% by 2025 and ultimately reaching 45% annually.

“Achieving those goals would produce a gift that keeps on giving,” Flechter said, citing not only the statewide environmental benefits but also the potential $300 million annual economic impact that would result from meeting the 30% recycling rate benchmark.

Recycling specialists statewide are getting into the spirit and endorsing the “Know It Before You Throw It” campaign. They are also urging residents to take steps to limit the stream of waste produced during the holidays.

“Beyond ‘recycling,’ ‘reducing’ and ‘reusing’ are also important ‘R’s,’” said Natalie Jakub, executive director of Green Living Science, the educational arm of Recycle Here!, Detroit’s drop-off recycling center and neighborhood recycling program. “While the message of recycling is certainly important, cutting down on consumption whenever possible is another way to reduce the amount of material going into the landfill.”

As a holiday-related example, try placing gifts in reusable bags instead of wrapping them in paper, she suggested.

A recycling list to check twice

Recycling rules can vary by community or even from one recycling center to another, so Michigan residents are urged to check with their local provider about what is acceptable in their area to ensure they don’t end up on a list of naughty recyclers, Flechter said.

Here are some general guidelines for handling common holiday items:

• Cardboard and gift boxes. While it’s best to reuse boxes, they’re also almost universally accepted by curbside recycling services, Flechter said. “Just be sure to break them down before placing them in your recycling container,” he said. “That saves valuable space for both you and the hauler.”
• Disposable eating utensils, plates and cups. These should go in the trash because, among other reasons, they likely contain food residue – a contaminant that can ruin a whole recycling load. Even never-used paper plates are potentially problematic because they might have an outer layer of wax, Jakub said. Can’t stomach the thought of throwing them away? “Use your fine china and silverware instead,” she said.
• Paper towels and napkins. Put these in the trash or a compost bin, Flechter said, since they’re probably soiled by food. Aluminum foil that is free of food contamination, however, is recyclable.
• Wrapping paper. The answer here is “maybe.” Wrapping paper is recyclable, provided it isn’t adorned with glitter or metal. However, “that’s not always easy to determine,” Jakub said. “So the recycling center would probably typically tell you it doesn’t want it,” she said. Instead, try wrapping presents in newspaper or plain brown craft paper, which is always recyclable.
• Packing materials. The packing peanuts, clear plastic padding and Styrofoam that protect electronic devices are typically not recyclable curbside. However, many communities – including Detroit – have drop-off centers where Styrofoam blocks and packing peanuts are accepted, and many large retailers collect clear and other types of plastic bags.
• Plastic shopping bags. “With the exception of a couple of municipalities in Michigan, these are almost never acceptable for curbside recycling because they can clog a recycling center’s machinery,” Flechter said. However, large retailers such as Meijer, Walmart and Target will collect plastic bags for recycling.
• Holiday lights. Recycling centers don’t want holiday light strings because they can get tangled in machinery, so they shouldn’t go in curbside recycling containers. Places that sell lights, on the other hand, will often accept them for recycling. Jakub also advised to avoid putting lights in the trash because they might contain harmful chemicals.
• Batteries. Almost 40% of battery sales occur during the holiday season, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Home improvement stores such as Home Depot often offer collection bins for rechargeable batteries, or check for local hazardous waste collection events where all types of batteries are accepted. Visit michigan.gov/eglehhw to find local drop-off sites. Like holiday light strings, batteries should not go in the trash or curbside recycling.
• Electronics. Retailers such as Best Buy or local collection events will take your used tech.
• Disposable tablecloths. Discard both the plastic and paper varieties of these because chances are they contain at least some traces of food contamination.
• Greeting cards. Just like any type of paper, these are typically recyclable in your curbside container, Flechter said. Just make sure there is no glitter or metal on them.
• Receipts. All those glossy, thermal paper receipts you collected while buying awesome gifts are not recyclable because they are coated in plastic to make them durable.
• Tinsel, ornaments and artificial trees. All of those should go in the trash or be donated to someone else for use.

This story was originally published by FOX17 for "Morning Mix".

Morning Mix has partnered with the Michigan Department of Environment Great Lakes Energy to talk about recycling. However, this goes way beyond paper and plastics.

Comprenew is a non-profit certified electronic recycler. They are able to take apart things like cellphones, computers, televisions and beyond, refurbish what they can and properly dispose of what they can't. If a computer lands in their hands, they will make sure all of the data is removed, too. You can imagine this is particularly important when they are dealing with a corporate client.

Unfortunately, Michigan's recycling rate is about 15 percent, putting us at the lowest for the Great Lakes region. The goal is to increase that number to 30 percent by 2025. EGLE is doing this with their campaign lead by the Recycle Raccoon Squad.

Along with keeping harmful items out of the landfills, Comprenew helps remove employment barriers. An estimate 65 percent of their workforce has some type of barrier. If you would like to learn more about Comprenew, visit their website comprenew.org

This story was originally published by WOOD-TV for "eightWest".

For all the great natural resources we have in Michigan, it might surprise you to know, our state is among one of the lowest recycling states in the nation! Recycling has a wide range of environmental and economic benefits, plus there are so many materials that can be recycled like metal, paper, and plastic. Today, we’re going to focus on recycling plastic, how to do it and how some really useful products are being made locally from recycled plastic.

We all know recycling is good for the environment but many people don’t realize the number of local jobs that come from recycling, more than landfills.

For instance, Padnos has more than 700 team members at locations throughout the state and they offer extensive training and benefits like helping employees pay for a large portion of their college tuition.  And lots of products are made from recycled plastic — automotive parts, office chairs, recycling bins, that’s a real bonus too!

To learn more about Padnos, you can visit padnos.com.