Given that Americans are so programmed to recycle plastics, it's easy to assume all of the soda bottles and yogurt containers in our blue bins will one day resurface — perhaps as an Adirondack chair or even fleece gloves.The reality is only about 9% of plastic waste is recovered for recycling, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Yes, some don't make it into recycling bins in the first place, but recovery rates are disappointing even for those that do because of difficulties processing and sorting. And, plastics that can't be recycled are sent to landfills. A fledgling Northeast Ohio company wants to change that. Three-year-old RES Polyflow is commercializing a technology that can produce crude oil from hard-to-recycle plastics. The company's stand-alone thermal-deconstruction vessels are designed to convert “co-mingled, low-value plastics into high-value, marketable blend stocks” without excessive handling, sorting or cleaning, according to Michael Dungan, the company's director of sales and marketing. Dungan said the company currently can produce ultra-low sulfur diesel and gasoline blends, not only diverting plastics from landfills but doing so with a lighter carbon footprint than other plastic conversion processes, such as incineration. To date, RES Polyflow has raised $9 million in funding, including a $1 million grant through the Ohio Third Frontier program that bankrolled the construction and operation of a successful pilot unit in North Perry. The pilot vessel, now offline, soon will become part of a larger commercial demonstration site where companies — such as recyclers with a market need for those difficult-to-recycle plastics — can see the technology in action. RES Polyflow CEO Jay Schabel said the company is finalizing the search for a site that will bring in about 10 tons of plastics per day and produce 17 million gallons of transportation fuel per year. RES Polyflow will own and operate the site, which will be located either in Ohio or Indiana. It is securing contracts both to divert landfill-bound plastics to the facility and to sell its oil blends to petroleum producers. Dungan anticipates the site will be up and running by 2017. Bill Hagstrand, senior director of cluster acceleration for the economic development organization Team NEO and a consultant to the company, said that while RES Polyflow is a young company, it's a misnomer to call it “developmental stage” because the technology is well established. He cites studies from the American Chemistry Council that find plastics-to-oil is positioned as an industry to create about 40,000 jobs and contribute some $9 billion to the U.S. economic output. Current U.S. demand could support 600 units, according to the council. “RES Polyflow could capture a big chunk of that,” Hagstrand said. “There are three dimensions to their performance — financial, of course, but they also have an environmental and social focus. In other words: profits, people and the planet.”
Jay Schabel, CEO, and Michael Dungan, director of sales and marketing, RES Polyflow
If you weren't working in the manufacturing sector, what would you be doing and why?
Schabel: “I would probably be donating my time in the 503(c) charitable sector. That’s a passion of mine: giving back.”
Dungan: “I would be working in a startup that was focused on innovating how the waste stream was managed.”
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