Recycling Rates in Michigan Are At an All-Time High
According to a recent press conference from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), recycling in the Great Lakes Region is now at an all-time high. The total amount of residential recycled materials being reported for fiscal year (FY) 2022 was 620,494 tons – that’s over 66,000 tons more than the previous new record set the year prior. Materials Michiganders recycled last year would fill the football stadiums at Ford Field, Michigan State University’s Spartan Stadium, and the Big House at the University of Michigan. Michiganders recycled over 339,000 tons of paper and paper products during FY 2022, more than 154,000 tons of metals, more than 71,000 tons of glass, and over 45,000 tons of plastics and plastic products. SBN Detroit spoke to the executive director of the Michigan Recycling Coalition, Kerrin O’Brien, and executive director of Green Living Science, Natalie Jakub to get their unique perspectives on how the state got here and how businesses in Southeast Michigan are participating. Q: Recycling rates in Michigan are now at an all-time high. How did we get here? O’Brien: There is a history of recycling in Michigan communities. Those communities that made recycling a priority began to develop their own programs. With advocacy through the Michigan Recycling Coalition, we started to see state-level leadership around 2014. Then Governor Rick Snyder saw the value of recycling and productive materials management and funded four additional recycling technical assistance staffers. The state department also began working with stakeholders to identify the level of funding needed to support a robust recycling program in the state. Funding for recycling was passed in 2018 which supports community grants for infrastructure and market development which are needed to grow recycling in Michigan. Q: How do you think education has impacted the increase in recycling? Jakub: Green Living Science works a lot with youth and in schools and one of the things we continue to hear is that families will often begin recycling because their children have learned about it and want to institute it in their homes. So, more education at a young age is a natural part of this behavior. The more conversations we have about the impact that waste has on our lives, people start to understand. The simpler we can make the education and the actual act of recycling we will see more people willing to participate. The city of Detroit has a 40% recycling participation is a huge jump from 11% a decade ago, so people and businesses are learning and largely eager to support. Q: How does Green Living Science work with businesses in Southeast Michigan regarding recycling practices? Jakub: GLS began in 2011 with a focus on education in the schools but over the years we started to see a great need for local businesses to get support setting up programs. Many businesses don’t have a dedicated staff person so it’s typically an administrator now tasked with everything that is involved with recycling – which can be a lot. We developed a program called Bee Green Business to make it easy for businesses that includes setting up infrastructure, bins, signage, and education. Bee Green Business is an education and certification program that aids businesses and their employees in becoming responsible corporate citizens. This program has been successful from small independent brands like 14 East Café and Red Crown restaurant to large institutions like Henry Ford Health, Ally Financial the DIA, and more. A challenge we commonly see in commercial facilities is that they weren’t designed for more than one waste stream, so there are challenges with space issues and infrastructure needed to make the programs run smoothly and efficiently. Many haulers only offer dumpsters for recycling and we’ve learned that there’s a great need for cart programs. Something mobile that can be moved from an office to a loading dock and dumped. Q: How can we and are we bringing more businesses into our recycling efforts? O’Brien: Our perspective is that recycling services need to be on par with waste services. If we are serious about developing a circular economy and getting the most value out of the materials already circulating in our society then we have to divert waste to recycling. We are working to assure businesses have the services they need to do this. Businesses also have to make the budget and program choices to say yes recycling is worth it. Reducing waste can add to the bottom line and savings can be used to expand services to make recycling even more efficient. Real progress will be driven by a combination of factors including public opinion, consumer choice, manufacturer ESG goals, future resource needs, and policy. Together we think these elements are moving businesses to make smart choices with end-of-life materials. Q: What can businesses get even better at recycling? O’Brien: Right now, brands are driving recycling in a new way. Many national, and international brands are looking at where the resources for making future products will come from and many of them are recognizing that recycling provides them with needed feedstock for new products This long-term thinking about product development and impacts provides good reason to recycle for all of us. In addition, many more job and business opportunities will develop locally as we get better at sorting through waste to recover and process resources for manufacturing that would otherwise be thrown away. Q: What does all of this mean for job creation in Southeast Michigan? O’Brien: This is a big topic but basically what we are talking about in the development of a circular economy is creating a new sector based on extracting resources where no one saw resources before. Anything we can do in this new sector – collection, diversion, processing, secondary processing to turn plastic to pellets, for example, means a new business opportunity in this region, the state, and the country. Diverting the resources that are in our waste offers a huge opportunity for new jobs. Q: Governor Whitmer and the
Creating a Closed-Loop Supply Chain for Recycling in Michigan
The Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) is working to grow a Michigan circular economy through recycling. Matt Flechter, recycling market development specialist at EGLE, says recycling programs in Michigan involve building a strong supply chain so the valuable commodities that businesses need make their way from the curb to new products. SBN Detroit spoke to Flechter to find out more. Q: Tell me about your role when it comes to recycling. A: For the past 22 years, I’ve been working toward the goal of helping Michigan regain a leadership position in recycling. I work for the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE), and my role is focused on recycling market development. This essentially means making sure there is a process in place for the materials that are put into dumpsters by manufacturers and businesses to make their way into sorted waste materials and then into reproduction, ultimately to make new products that are developed in Michigan. This sounds straightforward in its most basic terms, but recycling is a complex system. It takes motivated individuals to know that there is a better use for the materials that are being disposed of. It takes investing in the collection and hauling of materials. It takes reproduction and remanufacturing, and it takes having a market: end users that then purchase and/or use those materials. The last piece of this complex puzzle is ensuring that there are entities in place for each part of the cycle – and that they are connected – creating a fully functional closed-loop supply chain. Q: What are the biggest challenges? A: Recycling markets are diverse. Materials consist of plastic, paper, organics, and glass, and each has its own supply chain. Some have ready-made markets. Corrugated cardboard is an example here, as it can be bailed and sent to paper manufacturers for reuse. Finding markets to create a demand pull for a material like glass is more challenging. Another challenge is the geographic location of the manufacturers involved in the reproduction because transportation of materials can get costly. Also, many of these end markets are startups, and they need support and innovation, and new uses to create demand-pull. Good examples of these are Pivot Materials and NexTiles. For all of this to work, and for manufacturers and businesses to move from the use of non-recycled materials to recycled materials, there must be a consistent supply of these materials. So, the supply chains we are building need to be closed-loop, local, and robust. Q: How do EGLE and NextCycle Help? A: To address each part of the cycle I described, EGLE created NextCycle, and we collaborate with partners such as Centrepolis, Michigan Recycling Coalition, and Resource Recycling Systems, a global consultancy. We have made amazing strides in the last couple of years – with momentum coming from our NextCycle initiative. NextCycle is an incubator and accelerator and is designed to connect entrepreneurs, companies, organizations, and communities to technical support, financial resources, and capacity building for recycling, recovery, and reuse initiatives. If someone comes to us with a new idea, that company first applies to one of the NextCycle challenge tracks. There are five challenge tracks: Roads, Public Sector, Recycling Supply Chain Solutions, Organics Solutions, New Innovations, and Technology. They are then selected into a cohort or a team and we provide several areas of support, including technical assistance, research data, business development, funding opportunities, an extensive network, customized mentorship, and more to help get the idea to the next level. We have worked with over 60 teams, and it’s an exciting time when it comes to recycling. Q: How so? A: We are seeing a resurgence and interest in making sure Michigan has a strong circular economy, primarily because there are new people at the table focused on climate goals and deciding how they are going to tell their businesses’ sustainability story. Historically waste and recycling have been seen as an afterthought – we have a problem and now need to fix it. Businesses today are starting to look at fixing the problem before it’s created, which is a big paradigm shift that’s exciting. There is a lot of growth in this sector and there are threads of it in every business in Southeast Michigan. Every business is faced with choices and options to address the triple bottom line. This is also creating new business opportunities. There are broader-based coalitions working to expand recycling access, such as the Polypropylene Coalition and the Food Service Packaging Institute. There are also new people looking to fund. No longer is it just the government growing the recycling system. This increased participation and the growth of the end markets are exactly what is needed for success. Q: What Southeast Michigan businesses are you working with? A: I can give a few examples here. On the collection side, Pink Elephant Events provides zero-waste event services and waste diversion to the events industry, businesses, and nonprofits in Southeastern Michigan. They collect products for reuse, then calculate the impact, so that the business having the event can show a tangible “win’ toward their sustainability goals. An example on the processing side is Glacier. This California-based company identified Michigan as the best place to invest in deploying its innovative robotics technology. We connected them to two materials recycling facilities (MRF)s in Michigan to do so – SOCRRA in Troy and RRRASOC in Southfield – and provided grant funding. An example of end-use is Industrial Sewing and Innovation Center (ISAIC). We helped them to secure funding for equipment to more efficiently turn waste textiles into new products. We are starting to see a truly circular economy forming. The new businesses are feeding off of each other and multiplying. Q: Where does your passion come from? A: There is a huge amount of work to be done in recycling, but it’s a labor of love. I can see the growth potential now. There is funding to grow markets and that has created a clear process and
