Republic's Polymer Center to create circularity for plastics
As world leaders debate fossil fuel reliance at the COP28 climate summit, waste management innovators invest in sustainable practices and the reuse of plastics. Republic Services (RSG) CEO Jon Vander Ark tells Yahoo Finance that of 5 million items collected daily, plastics and cardboard dominate all which rely on fossil fuel usage for creation.
While recyclables get reprocessed into products like carpets, Vander Ark notes these ultimately reach landfills too. However, Republic's new Las Vegas Polymer Center aims to achieve "true circularity” — bottles remade endlessly into new bottles.
Vander Ark says the facility will help overturn current shortages in sustainable recycling infrastructure. Alongside corporate and regulatory pressures around ESG, he describes the Polymer Center as pivotal for scaling the reuse of plastics.
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.
Video Transcript
[AUDIO LOGO]
RACHELLE AKUFFO: Well, divisions at COP28 in Dubai over the future of fossil fuels and which countries should foot the bill, well, that continues. It comes as a record number of fossil fuel reps attend. So where does that leave corporations?
Well, nearly all of the chemicals used to make plastic use fossil fuels. Enter a new US center reducing the need to create new plastics. Now, the Republic Services Polymer Center is opening in Las Vegas this week. It's expected to produce more than 100 million pounds of recycled plastic each year for packaging and other applications. The center already has a big name customer on the docket here.
Well, Republic Services CEO John Vander Ark is here to tell us more. Thank you so much for joining us this morning, John. So want to first start with this big name here, because people think of plastic they maybe think of packaging, but talk about Coca-Cola here.
JOHN VANDER ARK: Obviously, we collect a lot of plastics. We pick up something 5 million times every day, and a big chunk of what we pick up is recycling, and that's-- cardboard and plastics are the two biggest commodities.
Most of plastics today gets downcycled so think of your water bottle, detergent bottle, milk jug, that's going to go into pipes, park benches, carpets, which is good. It's not going to go in the landfill, but at the end of the life of that product, it's going to end up in a landfill. And what the Polymer Center really unlocks is for us to get to true circularity, so turning that detergent bottle back into the detergent bottle, or the water bottle, or the beverage bottle back into the beverage bottle. And that's where Coca-Cola comes in. Obviously, they've made some pretty bold commitments around using recycled plastics in their products, and the Polymer Center is a huge enabler to help them reach their targets.
RACHELLE AKUFFO: And how difficult is it when some of these targets, they are voluntary? Some of these companies are doing this of their own accord, trying to push for sustainability here. But talk about some of the partnerships that you're making with companies and how incentivized some of your clients are.
JOHN VANDER ARK: I think it's both voluntary, it's also regulatory. So you see states, you see California, Washington, New Jersey, they're putting in mandates that by 2025, you need 15% post-consumer content that ramps up to about 50% by 2030. So both of the things are at play.
And listen, there's a lot of demand for this product, because the market short-supplied. So we could have sold out our Las Vegas center probably five times over, if we wanted to. People are lining up, because the market is short-supplied on truly food-grade recycled PET or recycled HDPE, and that's what this center unlocks.
RACHELLE AKUFFO: So talk about recycled plastic, and how it's made, and how you see that really contributing to the circular economy here when we think of the future of how we can reduce fossil fuel use.
JOHN VANDER ARK: So what we do today is we take that recycled plastic out of our 75 recycling centers, and our West Coast operations will flow through Las Vegas, and we'll have three more of these centers over the next few years. And it sorts all of that plastics, the HDPE and the PET, separates them, and gets color sorting. And then it really does hot washing and cleaning, and then eventually pelletizes it. And then that can go right into the bottlers or the other manufacturers, right back into food grade product.
No one has ever done this before in the United States, and it's a big investment. We're going to spend $75 million in Las Vegas and $300 million across the country in these four centers to get this product where it needs. And again, it's good for the environment, it's good for our shareholders, as well. We think we're going to have a positive return on this, as well.
