Page 33 - Plastics News May 2021

internAtionAL news

IRG to launch app-based plastics New York busy with plastics

recycling collection program policy on shampoo bottles,
chemical recycling
nternational Recycling Group
I(IRG), a recycling company ew York could become the second state to ban
developing an automated
sort in g pla n t in Erie , Nsingle-use plastic hotel toiletry bottles under 12
Pennsylvania, plans to offer ounces if Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs a bill (S543) that
passed last week. The bill would apply to hotels with
direct, on-demand curbside 50 rooms or more starting in January 2024 and all
collection of postuse plastics others in 2025. Policy observers anticipated the 2021
from homes and commercial
establishments in Erie. For the state legislative season would be active, given pent-up
curbside pickup service, the demand from bills stalled by the pandemic and ongoing
pressure for changes to recycling policy from many
recycler has partnered with sides. The new Arkansas law follows similar preemption
SmartBlock Beverages FZ LLZ, policies in more than a dozen states, according to
a United Arab Emirates-based startup that developed an
app called ZeLoop that provides sustainability rewards. analysis by the Surfrider Foundation. Details vary, but
“Imagine being rewarded for effortless recycling at your the general theme is to limit local governments from
regulating bags or packaging products. In this case,
home on your schedule,” says Mitch Hecht, founder and the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports
chair of IRG. “Reducing plastic use should be an essential that Fayetteville – one of the state's largest cities –
part of all of our lives, but now we can recycle with the
confidence that no plastic waste will end up in a landfill expects the state law will likely prohibit its policies
and be rewarded for using a simple app to schedule a to charge a fee for plastic bags and ban polystyrene
foam food containers. While preemption policies are
curbside plastics pickup.” According to a news release from still active in some states, other states are once again
IRG, the companies are developing a recycling collection pursuing policies to limit or ban certain products
system for household and commercial use that will
guarantee 100 percent of plastic materials in homes and
retail establishments can be recycled or have a nonlandfill
end-of-life utility. The service will include at-home and at-
store collections of all forms of plastic. IRG and SmartBlock
say the system will be based on other smartphone-based
networks, such as Uber, to match consumers and retail
establishments with volunteer collectors to pick up their
plastic scrap. IRG says ZeLoop combines “gamification
and social media interaction” with a digital currency
system involving Eco Rewards, which are exchangeable
for other forms of digital currency that can be used to
acquire goods and services through corporate partnerships. after a temporary pause early in the pandemic. New
The companies expect to initiate a pilot program of this Jersey passed a law limiting bags and polystyrene foam
service in Erie in the summer of 2021 and will work with containers last year. Washington passed a similar foam
Penn State University’s Behrend campus in Erie. Hetch
says, “Our concept is to use the ZeLoop Platform and to ban this month in a bill that also notably has post-
modify it to allow us to create what is essentially a door- consumer recycled content requirements for plastic
beverage containers. Many of the highest-profile
to-door, on-demand pickup of 100 percent waste plastics. proposals this year focus on versions of extended
So, really, the concept here is that if you look at so many producer responsibility (EPR), with bills introduced in
recycling collection systems going out of business in towns
and municipalities because the [material recovery facility] nearly a dozen states. The sponsor of New York's EPR
system is under economic pressure. bill, state Senator Todd Kaminsky, is also behind the
toiletry bottle bill.

33 May 2021 Plastics News