Damage Control: Recycling Plastics

Many manufacturing and recycling companies find themselves stuck with plastic that has been contaminated, crudely recycled or poorly scrapped.

These materials are normally sent to the landfill or shipped overseas, which has a high cost for both the environment and the organization.

Recovering plastics such as these can be a tricky task, but an increasing number of companies are taking on the challenge.

According to Butler-MacDonald, contaminant removal based upon relative color values delivering polymers free of the unwanted colors, such as removing a black concentrate from a natural plastic. Polymer may or may not be compatible or of the same type. Photo: Abcnews.com

One such company is Butler-Macdonald, headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind. Since 1983, Butler-MacDonald has been working with manufacturers, recyclers and prime resin producers to recover value from what most consider to be “unusable” plastic. Recovering these plastics is a win-win environmentally and economically. It can help organizations:

• Reduce production costs
• Comply with environmental missions
• Create revenue by recovering valuable plastic to a form suitable for manufacturing or sale

Butler-Macdonald takes in troublesome material, processes it and ships back to the original company a product that is up to 99.9 percent pure. “You won’t believe everything we can do” is its motto.

“What we find is that many of our competitors can do bits and pieces of what we do, but few can do everything that we are capable of in-house. That makes us very unique,” says Vice President Tim Cash.

Progressive Technology

How do they do it? The processes are top secret, but state-of-the-art technology allows the lab to identify the individual polymers and contaminants in each material and remove them, returning the “unusable” to value-laden material. This may include:

• Separating plastics that have been accidentally mixed together
• Separating plastics of different colors
• Separating contaminants (dirt, wood, gravel, metal, paper, etc.) from plastic pellets, parts or regrind
• Recovering plastic from products containing both plastic and non-plastic materials (media products, automotive parts, vinyl window cut-off and trim and appliances)
• Recovering plastic from manufactured products that did not meet quality specifications
• Reclaiming plastic from complex consumer returns or packaging (emptied laser toner cartridges, buckets, drums, totes, dunnage trays, agricultural trays and coat hangers)

Recent Growth

The green movement has been an enormous benefit to Butler-Macdonald, which has experienced solid growth of about 20 percent each year over the last three years, according to Cash. Last year was an especially strong year, ending with more than 50 percent growth. Even in these difficult economic times, the company expects to maintain.

“This is the right time for this industry,” Cash says.  ”In previous years, I think a lot of the manufacturers just wanted the material to go away. They didn’t see the value in it. That’s where we come in; we help them see the value in it. Also, people are more conscious of the environment now. If there is an option available, they would rather not put material in a landfill.”

Accepting The Challenge

The whole idea at Butler-Macdonald is to restore value to materials others thought were unusable. For Cash, it is a fulfilling occupation.

“It’s exciting being part of the environmental move and providing people an option,” he says. “Every day we are hearing from larger companies who want to get on board. We typically handle very difficult jobs, things that others cannot do. We are taking on the challenging jobs and finding solutions for people.”