Firstar Fiber: Making hard-to-recycle plastic circular

Improving plastics circularity in the USA

A key barrier to improving the circularity of hard-to-recycle plastics is the lack of end markets.

In 2021, the Alliance partnered with Firstar to expand their materials recovery facility (MRF) in Omaha, Nebraska, into an integrated recycling facility to convert difficult-to-recycle plastic waste to post consumer resin (PCR).

Over the next 3 years, Firstar and the Alliance worked together to develop a plastic pre-processing facility (PPRF) that is equipped to process hard-to-recycle plastic such as plastic film waste from curbside recyclable collections, the Hefty Renew program, and other sources such as agricultural and post-commercial streams. Plastic waste can be sorted and sustainably and economically re-manufactured into marketable feedstocks for recyclers and turned into goods such as plastic lumber for decking and other non-structural applications.

The facility is equipped to break bags and bales, perform manual quality control, remove metal contaminants, shred, clean, and convey material for flaking or pelletising. In addition, a 1.3 KTA plastic lumber extrusion facility was installed to utilise a portion of the material produced at the PPRF. By integrating the facilities with the existing MRF operations, Firstar demonstrates the economic opportunity to generate new revenue streams for a MRF including plastic lumber production and pellet sales as feedstock for mechanical and advanced recycling.

The equipment for the plastic pre-processing facility was installed in Q1 2022. Since then, Firstar has started establishing end markets for the plastic lumber and pellets produced at the PPRF.

Although processing hard-to-recycle film and flexible feedstock is challenging due to the heterogenous and very light material, Firstar continues to work with technology partners to troubleshoot and develop plans to increase throughput and upgrade equipment as needed. The company has gained valuable insights from the project and demonstrated that this model could be successfully could be replicated at other recycling facilities across the USA.

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“The typical waste management system in the USA faces many barriers to recycling and reselling hard-to-recycle plastic waste because of the lack of end markets and the complex steps and partners involved in collecting, sorting, processing, and remanufacturing these plastics. With this project we have the opportunity to bring all of those elements together—literally under one roof—in order to find sustainable solutions and provide value to all plastic waste even those previously destined for the landfill or the environment.”

Dale Gubbels, Firstar Fiber Corporation