Ontario recycler EFS-plastics earns Recycling Partnership grant

The Recycling Partnership’s Film and Flexibles Recycling Coalition has announced its first film packaging capture grant to Listowel, Ont.-based EFS-plastics, a recycling company that specializes in plastic film recycling.

The US$200,000 grant will pay for new equipment for EFS’ recycling facility in Hazleton, Pa., increasing film recycling capacity by an additional 560,000 pounds per month – equivalent to more than 50 million plastic bags – and laying the groundwork to scale residential film and flexible plastics recycling.

EFS diverts 60,000,000 pounds per year from landfills from the 90,000 square-foot Hazleton plant and its 75,000 square-foot plant in Listowel.

According to The Partnership’s Paying It Forward Report, significant investment is needed for film and flexible packaging to become widely accepted in residential collection and processing – just one per cent of U.S. households can recycle in their bin or cart today. With nearly 95 pounds of these materials found in each U.S. home yearly, The Partnership says that system improvements to increase residential film and flexibles recycling are “crucial” to addressing the plastic waste crisis and saving more than four million tons from landfills each year. Film packaging also offers a reduced carbon footprint compared to heavier packaging.

The Film and Flexibles Recycling Coalition, part of The Partnership’s Pathway to Circularity Initiative, is a broad group of industry stakeholders seeking to increase curbside collection of film recycling and support end markets for film and flexible products. The Coalition’s primary focus in 2022-2023 is proving efficient and effective collection through pilot projects as well as infrastructure and optimization grants, complementing The Partnership’s grant programs for communities and Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs). In addition to new equipment at the EFS operation in Hazelton, a portion of this grant will fund testing at the EFS Listowel facility to reprocess material into pellets for creating new products and packaging.