Firstar Fiber: Making hard-to-recycle plastic circular

Firstar Fiber (Firstar) is a leading provider of recycling services across several Midwestern states, processing and marketing close to 100,000 tons per year of a wide variety of materials, including hard-to-recycle plastics like bags and films. A key barrier to improving the circularity of hard-to-recycle plastics is the lack of end markets. We are partnering with Firstar to develop these markets by implementing a new model for recovering, reselling, and remanufacturing hard-to-recycle plastic waste.

Improving plastics circularity in the USA

In 2021, we partnered with Firstar to expand their materials recovery facility (MRF) in Omaha, Nebraska, into an integrated recycling complex.

Over the next 3 years, we will work together to develop a pre-processing facility where plastic waste can be sorted and hard-to recycle plastics can be sustainably and economically re-manufactured into marketable feedstocks and goods such as plastic lumber for decking and other non-structural applications. The company also plans to explore the potential of advanced recycling technologies to produce other plastic products from hard-to-recycle plastic waste.

The equipment for the first phase of the pre-processing facility is currently being installed and the plant is expected to commence operations in Q1 2022. If successful, this model 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, CEO, Firstar Fiber Corporation