The facility will use the company’s advanced anaerobic digestion technology to convert up to 130,000 gallons per day of food waste along with sewage biosolids into biogas.

Anaergia Inc., a waste-to-energy company based in Burlington, Ontario, has announced its equipment has been integrated with a wastewater treatment plant in Highland, California. The new facility, owned and operated by East Valley Water District and known as the Sterling Natural Resources Center (SNRC), held a ribbon-cutting ceremony this month.

According to a news release from Anaergia, the SNRC will recycle water to replenish local groundwater and convert wastewater solids and food waste into renewable energy and organic fertilizer. It will also serve as a community center for education and local events.   

All wastewater and food waste entering the plant will be converted into resources, and the facility will supply electricity to the grid for its needs.   

The SNRC will use Anaergia’s advanced anaerobic digestion technology to convert up to 130,000 gallons of food waste daily and its sewage biosolids into biogas. The biogas will be used to generate three megawatts of renewable electricity, enough to meet all the facility’s energy needs and add renewable power to the electric grid.   

Additionally, the plant will use membrane technology made by Anaergia’s affiliated company Fibracast to recycle up to eight million gallons of wastewater daily. Residues left over after energy is produced will be converted to valuable biochar, a natural fertilizer that will be sold and used to enrich farmland soil.  

“Thanks to the leadership of East Valley Water District, the SNRC will make two paradigm shifts on how humanity builds wastewater facilities in the future,” says Andrew Benedek, chairman and CEO of Anaergia. “The first paradigm shift is to make every wastewater plant maximize its resource recovery, reducing impacts to the environment. The second paradigm shift is to make such plants a social benefit and not a smelly eyesore.”  

Benedek says he believes this facility will serve as a catalyst for positive change due to its park-like setting, its community center and the vocational training programs associated with the SNRC. 

The new appointees come from Keurig Dr Pepper, Ball Corp., Nestle USA and the Association of Plastic Recyclers.

The Recycling Partnership, Washington, recently made changes to its board of directors. The board guides and supports The Partnership’s plan and builds on the organization’s mission, transforming U.S. residential recycling and advancing the circular economy.   

“When companies make commitments to reduce waste, improve recycling, and advance the circular economy, it’s our job to insist and assist,” says Keefe Harrison, CEO of The Recycling Partnership. “Our board is comprised of industry-leading sustainability and recycling advocacy experts from leading companies across the value chain who are committed to transforming U.S. recycling and enhancing a circular economy.”   

At the June board of directors meeting, the following officers were elected:     

Chair – Monique Oxender, Keurig Dr Pepper;  

Vice Chair – Stephanie Potter, Nestlé USA;   

Vice Chair – Gary McElyea, The Coca-Cola Co.;    

Treasurer – Steve Alexander, Association of Plastic Recyclers; and,  

Secretary – Sara Axelrod, Ball Corp.  

“As the U.S. makes the critical shift toward a circular economy, there is an opportunity to significantly improve recycling through The Partnership’s cross-sector collaborations,” Oxender says. “Companies are amplifying both dollars and action by investing in solutions that accelerate change, reflecting an action-oriented focus that The Recycling Partnership can uniquely deliver.”  

The five appointments join seven industry leaders recently elected to serve on The Recycling Partnership’s board of directors. The newly elected directors include Holli Alexander, a strategic initiatives manager of sustainability at Eastman; Meghan Altman, environmental impact lead for Danone North America; Scott Breen, vice president of sustainability for the Can Manufacturers Institute; Gary McElyea, the head of North American public policy center for The Coca-Cola Co.; and Stephanie Potter, the head of sustainability for corporate and government affairs for Nestlé USA.   

Also reelected for an additional term was Megan Daum, the vice president of sustainability for the American Beverage Association, and Scott Hemink, ITQ director of packaging for General Mills.     

The Recycling Partnership says it fosters relationships across the recycling value chain to connect needs to solutions, build data-driven tools, engage policymakers and communicate with stakeholders to accelerate change. The Partnership works with communities across the country to improve recycling and supports companies as they improve packaging to support climate and sustainability goals. It also engages with policymakers to address the systemic needs of the residential recycling system.   

The grant will help the organization purchase equipment to haul and transport scrap tires.

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) has awarded a $750,000 grant to Tennessee Tire Recycling (TTR) in Lebanon, Tennessee, as part of the state’s Tire Environmental Act Program.

According to a news release from TDEC, TTR, a division of Rockwood Sustainable Solutions, will provide matching funds of $914,170 and use the grant to purchase equipment related to the hauling collection and transportation of tires between counties. TTR plans to increase its hauling capacity through the purchase of a truck, trailers and a mobile grinder to support counties across the state with more options for managing scrap tires. The project will cost a total of about $1.66 million and will enable TTR to recycle about 700,000 tires annually.

“TDEC is proud to support the business community in its efforts to implement environmentally responsible actions,” says TDEC Commissioner David Salyers. “TDEC is a resource, not just a regulator. We are proud to be a resource in working with our communities through the grant process while working with the Tennessee General Assembly to obtain the funding for grants that help protect our natural resources and grow local economies throughout the state.”  

According to TDEC, the Tire Environmental Act Program selects and funds projects that best result in beneficial uses for scrap tires. Projects must qualify for one of three categories: tire processing/recycling, tire-derived material use or research and development. The program provides grants to eligible entities, including local governments, nonprofit organizations, higher education institutions, K-12 schools and for-profit entities.

TDEC says the state established its Tire Environmental Fund in 2015. Upon the first retail sale of a new motor vehicle to be titled and registered in Tennessee, a flat fee based on the number of a vehicle’s wheels is assessed, and that fee goes into the fund, which is used for projects creating or supporting beneficial end uses for scrap tires. Since 2015, grantees have received about $4.5 million from the program and about 3.6 million tires have been diverted from landfills as a result. The tires have been repurposed for use in rubberized asphalt, tire-derived aggregate, tire-derived fuel, granulated rubber porous flexible pavement and other end uses.

A partnership between Great Lakes Tissue, Carton Council, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy and the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to provide funds to better handle food and beverage cartons.

Great Lakes Tissue, a manufacturer of 100-percent-recycled tissue and paper products in Cheboygan, Michigan, has partnered with the Carton Council of North America and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) to help boost sustainability by improving manufacturing and recycling infrastructure in the state.

The mill says for 30 years it has been utilizing 100-percent-recycled material, including cartons and other postconsumer products, to make tissue products, and now seeks to recycle more food and beverage cartons and to find what it calls “a better use for the small percentage of polyethylene (PE) and poly/aluminum in cartons. Great Lakes Tissue has now partnered with the Carton Council and EGLE, as well as the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD), to fund the effort.

The funding has provided the mill with new equipment to better handle the poly and poly/aluminum residual from the pulping process and, along with allowing the mill to process more cartons, the equipment also removes more moisture from PE and poly/aluminum, which it says significantly decreases its weight and allowing for more efficient transport with lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The company says it also can recapture the water and recycle it back into the process for reuse.

“The new equipment has allowed us to reduce the water content in our material from 65 percent to 17 percent, far exceeding our goal of 25 percent,” says Julie LaFond, plant engineer and general project manager at Great Lakes Tissue. “This lower moisture allows for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as we can haul the same volume of materials in fewer loads.”

MDARD Director Gary McDowell says his department is “proud to invest in technology helping reduce food and beverage cartons from ending up landfills while supporting a Michigan-based business.”

Currently, Great Lakes Tissue says the small amount of poly/aluminum residue is sent to St. Mary’s Cement in Charlevoix, Michigan, where it offsets the use of coal as fuel versus being sent to landfill, and the company adds that it continues to explore alternative uses for the material with a goal of eventually using it to make new products.

“Our goal is to keep cartons out of landfills and ensure they are able to go on to have a second life,” says Jason Pelz, vice president of recycling projects at the Carton Council and vice president of sustainability, U.S., Canada, Central America and Caribbean for Tetra Pak. “We are delighted to help fund these efforts and believe it is a model that could be replicated in other locations.”

The ground glass pozzolan, made by Urban Mining Industries, can be found in projects across New York and Connecticut.

For more than a decade, New Rochelle, New York-based Urban Mining Industries has been advancing a new use for recycled glass in the form of Pozzotive, a ground glass pozzolan used in concrete production. Like other artificial pozzolanic materials such as coal fly ash, ground glass can assume cement-like qualities when it reacts with a combination of water and cement. Patrick Grasso of the Grasso family, owners of Urban Mining Industries, says Pozzotive strengthens concrete and lowers CO2 emissions. In using locally sourced glass, Pozzotive also has ushered in a circular economy for the glass industry in Connecticut, where it is now being made.

Grasso, a partner with Urban Mining Industries, says his family has long been involved in the construction industry. The Grassos’ story starts more than 15 years ago with the family first obtaining a block manufacturing plant in upstate New York. After rebuilding the plant, they used it to make grey construction block. Louis Grasso Jr., Patrick’s nephew, wanted to find a way to distinguish their gray block from every other gray block made in America. After Louis was advised to include recycled content in the block, a series of trial-and-error tests were done to find a material that could meet this goal. It was decided that glass was the best choice. After realizing the use of bigger chunks of glass wasn’t the best approach, they eventually created a fine powder of ground glass that became Pozzotive.

“So, as a result of that block manufacturing plant, we were able to see the market way back then when no one else was willing to experiment with this kind of stuff,” Patrick Grasso says.

The magic of Pozzotive’s effect in concrete, Patrick Grasso says, starts with a chemical reaction when it is paired with water and cement. Before Pozzotive becomes involved, the hydration of cement introduces two key compounds. One is calcium silicate hydrate (CSH), which Grasso says is the “glue” that develops the concrete’s strength. The other product is calcium hydroxide (CH), which conversely weakens the concrete and causes porosity. When a ground glass pozzolan is introduced, it gives up a silica atom and joins the CH to become CSH. This pozzolanic reaction allows ground glass to gain cementing properties and act as a partial replacement to cement. In most mixes, Pozzotive replaces 20 or 30 percent of cement.

Initially, Pozzotive was produced in small quantities at a product validation plant in New York. Before 2022, the company was mostly focused on getting a solid footing in the pozzolan market. It took four years, Grasso says, to obtain an ASTM 1866 standard that specifically confirmed the viability of ground glass pozzolans in concrete. This process involved a committee of industry professionals that vetted and signed off on 3rd party testing done with Pozzotive.

Since its inception, Pozzotive has been used in projects at various locations, most of which are in New York and Connecticut. Some of these include the ESPN Digital Center 2, the New York Police Academy and the Second Avenue subway station in Manhattan. During the UN General Assembly Building’s renovation, 60 tons of window glass were harvested from the building and used to create pavers with Pozzotive for the UN Plaza. Grasso says smaller projects in Connecticut that have used Pozzotive, including Ox Ridge Elementary School in Darien and New Canaan Library in Canaan, particularly demonstrate the significance of Pozzotive in building a local circular economy.

In addition to supporting a circular economy, Patrick Grasso says Pozzotive addresses other challenges in the glass recycling industry: the cleaning and separating of glass and costs associated with transporting and logistics if a processor is not nearby. A common route for recycled glass is turning it back into bottles, but complications can arise in this process as the glass needs to be separated by color and any ceramics need must be removed because of their different melting temperature. The color of the glass does not affect Pozzotive, and pieces of ceramics are welcome since they are pozzolanic as well. Pozzotive also can use glass from electronics that don’t contain lead, plate glass and demolition glass. The glass is taken through a cleaning and separating process and is milled into a pozzolan that is 95 percent smaller than 325 mesh, Grasso says.

A primary issue within the cement industry, Grasso says, is CO2 emissions. Cement production accounts for about 7 percent of all global carbon emissions, and the U.S. alone uses more than 100 million tons of cement per year, he says. Twice as much concrete is used in construction than wood, plastics and aluminum combined. Even though common postindustrial cement replacements such as fly ash and slag, which is residue from steel manufacturing, can create a lower carbon concrete, Grasso says he considers postconsumer ground glass an even better replacement.

“A glass bottle is a glass bottle pretty much anywhere in the world in terms of its chemical composition … you can make a very consistent finished product because of the feedstock you’re starting with,” he says.

Grasso says that every ton of cement generates almost a ton of CO2. Urban Mining Industries has done testing to replace up to 50 percent of cement in concrete with Pozzotive, reducing the carbon footprint by almost a ton–for–ton basis of the cement it replaces, he says.

Pozzotive has other benefits that exhibit how it enhances performance of concrete along with its sustainable qualities. Concrete with greater percentages of Pozzotive feature a brighter white color, meaning it can reduce the heat island effect in urban areas, where temperatures are higher in light of a greater abundance of manufactured surfaces that absorb heat. Grasso says Pozzotive does a greater job of preventing efflorescence—when a white powdery substance bleeds out of concrete—and shrinkage, which means less cracking. He says concrete with Pozzotive is five-times more powerful in reducing moisture and chloride penetration than a straight cement mix.

“I think it’s a holistic solution, a climate solution, a health solution—avoiding heavy metals and some of these other alternatives … and the circular economy issue about really just taking regenerative waste streams regionally and putting them back into those regions,” he says.

Pozzotive has been used by different companies and organizations, including Torrington, Connecticut-based ready mix company O&G Industries. T.J. Oneglia, vice president at O&G, says he believes the use of pozzolans in general is likely on the rise in the concrete industry. Oneglia points to recent trends of using more recycled material and lowering buildings’ carbon footprint.

“I am seeing support in our local market from the designers, the architects, the engineers and also the owners and the end users of the concrete. [There is] a desire to build green, and so Pozzotive, just by its very nature, in my opinion, is greener than the other sources of materials,” Oneglia says.

Ground glass pozzolans in particular could experience higher demand due to potential supply issues with other pozzolans, Oneglia says.

He says O&G plans to continue using Pozzotive mixes, which are starting to be specified on school projects and municipal projects.

“We intend to supply it as an ingredient in our concrete wherever and whenever it’s specified,” Oneglia says. “And then, in addition to that, we intend to use it just as a part of our daily concrete when we’re able to.”

Patrick Grasso says Urban Mining Industries’ focus is now on further commercializing Pozzotive and using it for bigger projects. The first large scale Pozzotive plant was established in Beacon Falls, Connecticut, in 2021. Grasso says this is a good central location from a glass feedstock perspective and allows Urban Mining Industries to serve the greater metropolitan New York market while also expanding into the Boston market. The new facility will allow the company to produce an estimated 50,000 tons of Pozzotive, Grasso says.

“We had to go through this four-year process of getting an ASTM standard. And we’ve had to have this product in use now for over 10 years to make sure it wasn’t some fly-by-night thing, it was real. We had to have the first plant up that can produce it commercially, large scale, and so all of those steps are now in place. So, any market where there is a need of a glass solution of some reasonable size, we can be there,” he says.