CREATED BY
Sponsor content is produced in collaboration with advertisers by Insider Studios, the branded content team at Insider Inc. Insider's editorial staff is not involved in the creation of this content. Copyright © 2022 Insider Inc. All rights reserved. Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Cookies Policy.
Contact Us | Sitemap | Disclaimer | Accessibility | Commerce Policy | CA Privacy Rights | Coupons | Made in NYC | Jobs
Plastic is widely used in almost every aspect of modern life, and its benefits are extensive. It’s lightweight; helps avoid greenhouse gas emissions during transportation and use compared to many alternatives; and significantly extends the shelf life of perishables.
It’s snack time.
What are you grabbing first?
Many types of plastic can be easily recycled, like water bottles and milk
jugs. But some types of plastic packaging contain layers of different materials and often can’t be recycled the traditional way.
In fact, only 14% of plastic packaging – like bottles and containers – is recycled into other products using traditional recycling. So what happens to the
other 86%?*
A new class of technologies, known as advanced recycling, can help address this challenge. Advanced recycling has the potential to process the majority of used plastic, so it can be remade into
new products.
Since 2017, more than 70 advanced recycling projects have been announced in the U.S. with the potential to divert more than 5.5 million metric tons (about 12.1 billion pounds) of waste from landfills annually.
Alterra Energy, located in Akron, Ohio, is one of the many advanced recycling facilities that can take harder-to-recycle plastics, like snack packages, and give them a new life.
The idea for us is to go after hard-to-recycle, end-of-life plastics that are not recycled elsewhere and currently are being disposed of.”
"
SORT
COLLECT
TRANSFORM
CONSERVE
REMAKE
PACKAGE
TOSS
US IN
Sponsor
content by
We come to work every day with one purpose — to create a cleaner planet for future generations, which to us means no more mismanaging, landfilling, or incinerating used plastic.
"
Jeremy DeBenedictis,
president of Alterra Energy
By recycling significantly greater amounts of plastics than ever before, items like our snack packaging can now go from being used once to being used again and again.
Learn More
Here’s how it works when you
toss out your snack packaging:
Jerky
When you finish your snack,
what do you do with the empty package?
Place it in recycling bin
Toss it in the trash
Place it in recycling bin
Toss it in the trash
When you finish your snack,
what do you do with the empty package?
Trail Mix
Place it in recycling bin
Toss it in the trash
When you finish your snack,
what do you do with the empty package?
Apple Sauce
This can’t be recycled today through traditional mechanical recycling. Read on to learn how snack packaging can be recycled again and again in the near future.
That's right!
You may need to rethink
your recycling strategy.
Scroll down to understand why.
Not quite.
Facilities like Alterra take tons of used plastic from various sources and transform them back into their original building blocks, which are
used to make
new products.
CLICK
ON ME
Examples include snack packaging, foam, pouches,
and tubes.
Machines process the used plastic and remove non-plastic materials, like metals and paper, as well as contaminants, like dirt.
CLICK
ON ME
This is where Alterra’s advanced recycling process comes in. Here, the plastic is heated and transformed into valuable hydrocarbons.
"
Jeremy DeBenedictis,
president of Alterra Energy, says
OVER
HERE
ME
TOO
CLICK
ON ME
Did you know?
?
Advanced recycling technologies help conserve resources by displacing use of new oil and natural gas.
"
Fred Schmuck, CEO of Alterra Energy, says
The building blocks created from advanced recycling are sent to manufacturers that can use them — instead of new oil or natural gas — to make new plastic.
CLICK
ON ME
And now, this plastic can become a variety of new products. This new plastic may even be used to create the packaging for your favorite snack again.
Start over
To prepare the sorted plastic for the next step, Alterra shreds or grinds the plastic so that it can feed it into the process.
“We do that by continuously feeding the plastic into a closed, oxygen-free vessel where heat is indirectly added."
The heat causes the plastic to melt and vaporize. “Think about melting ice. If you put an ice cube in a pot on your stove, the ice will melt into water, and then evaporate, leaving behind anything extra, like salt,” DeBenedictis explains.
Alterra condenses
these vapors into a hydrocarbon liquid, plastic's original building block, which is used to create new products, including new plastic.
And just like
melting ice and separating it from salt, contaminants are left behind so they don't end up in the final product.
Advanced recycling
facilities across the country are regulated similar to other manufacturing facilities, including food and auto manufacturing, through government requirements to protect both the environment and people’s health.
“We’re effectively
converting used plastic,
that would otherwise be discarded, into useful products — reducing the need for virgin oil, which is carbon extracted from the ground.”
*Source: US EPA.
Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: Facts and Figures Report | US EPA
Fred Schmuck, CEO, Alterra Energy
And that’s the exciting potential of advanced recycling.
When you finish your snack,
what do you do with the empty package?
Apple Sauce
When you finish your snack,
what do you do with the empty package?
Jerky
Place it in recycling bin
Toss it in the trash
Place it in recycling bin
Toss it in the trash
Fred Schmuck, CEO, Alterra Energy
