The leaders of a plastics-to-oil plant in Oregon are putting their main business plans on hold and instead processing expanded polystyrene packaging. According to a report in The Oregonian newspaper, Agilyx will shut down its plastics-to-oil operation to re-tool and begin producing styrene from collected EPS this summer at its Portland-area facility. The site is owned by Waste Management and...

Waste Management has fired five managers and launched an in-depth audit after discovering company drivers brought recyclable materials from several North Texas cities to a landfill. The publicly traded waste and recycling giant discovered employees dumped recyclable materials collected from 14 cities and subdivisions in the landfill over a 21-month period ending in January, according to The Dallas Morning News....

An equipment upgrade at a Sherbrooke, Quebec materials recovery facility boosted the facility's capacity from 14 tons per hour to 18 tons per hour and resulted in improved bale quality. The $2.6 million (Canadian) investment was made last fall at the Récup Estrie facility, which is about 100 miles east of Montreal and sorts about 30,000 tons of material each...

Maine legislators are mulling a wide-ranging bill meant to help the state meet its 50 percent diversion goal. Legislative Document 1578 makes various changes to the state's materials management landscape. One major provision in the legislation requires mandatory organics diversion for some large food scraps generators. The bill also brings a fee for materials sent to incinerators and implements extended...

Officials announced an initiative to persuade Flint, Mich. residents to recycle the volumes of plastic water bottles they've received because of the city's drinking-water crisis. Six water bottle recovery drop-off sites have been established around the city of 100,000 people, and officials are reaching out to encourage residents to use existing curbside collections provided by Republic Services. Only an estimated...

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Tampa, Fla.-based e-Quality Recycling has gained certification to the ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 and R2:2013 standards. JSI Metals & Electronics Recycling of Conway, Ark. is now certified to the R2:2013 and RIOS standards. Dakota Data Shred of Sioux Falls, S.D.; Gilmore Services of Pensacola, Fla.; Northcoast, Inc. Recycling Specialists dba Northcoast Shredding Services & Record Center of Wickliffe, Ohio; Paper...

In a press release sent out this morning, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett announced that plans for the proposed Covanta mixed-waste materials recovery facility have been temporarily suspended. "Leadership begins with listening, and I believe Indianapolis deserves a true community conversation before we move forward with any waste and recycling plan," Hogsett said in a press release announcing the decision to...

The American Chemistry Council has shared some uplifting news this week: Rigid plastics recycling grew 27 percent by weight in 2014, and film recycling also increased. Those findings were shared in the form of two separate reports released Tuesday. “Over the years we’ve been tracking very strong growth in both rigids and film,” Keith Christman, managing director of plastics markets...

Machinex has installed two sortation lines at a facility in the U.K.: one taking in single-stream-collected materials and the other separating recyclables from trash. The Quebec, Canada-based equipment company installed lines at a new facility in Wakefield, just south of the city of Leeds. The facility, operated by Shanks Waste Management, is capable of sorting more than 250,000 short tons...