Local
waste company J. P. Mascaro & Sons has announced that nine of its municipal
recycling contracts qualify for participation in an industry-sponsored Pilot
Program for the curbside collection of flexible plastic packaging (“FPP”). The municipalities joining this special
recycling initiative are: Quakertown
Borough, Warminster in Bucks County; Ambler Borough and Whitemarsh Township in Montgomery
County and Alburtis Borough, Lehigh County.
J.
P. Mascaro & Sons and its TotalRecycle fully-automated single stream
recycling facility in Exeter Township, Berks County, are leading this
innovative Pilot Program to demonstrate the viability of processing FPP at
automated material recovery facilities and marketing the recycled product,
known as rFlex, to end users. FPP, which
includes plastic bags, wraps, pouches, product packaging, etc., represents a
growing portion of the residential household waste stream. Historically, this material has not been
successfully recycled and has had to be landfilled.
Mascaro
was awarded a $2.6 million grant for the Pilot Program by the Materials
Recovery for the Future ("MRFF") to install sophisticated optical
sorting equipment at its TotalRecycle facility to make the recycling of FPP
possible. Members of MRFF include
companies and associations such as Dow Chemical, Nestlé Purina, Pepsico,
Procter & Gamble, Target, the Association of Plastic Recyclables, the
Flexible Packaging Association, the Plastics Industry Association, and the
American Chemistry Council.
Speaking
about the Pilot Program, Joseph P. Mascaro, Sr., Mascaro's Director of
Sustainability, said, "Our company is thrilled to have been chosen by the
MRFF for this Pilot Program. We have
purchased and installed all of the new automated optical sorting equipment
needed to recycle FPP and we are excited to add FPP to the existing curbside
collection recycling programs of the participating municipalities."
Curbside
collection of FPP from households in the participating municipalities will
begin in February 2020. Mascaro will be
mailing each one of those households a notice with information regarding the
types of FPP that will be collected as a recyclables. The FPP Pilot Program will generate important
data to show other interested municipalities that the recycling and marketing
of FPP material is possible and
economical, and that a market exists for the rFlex end product.
For
more information about J. P. Mascaro & Sons, its infrastructure, facilities
and comprehensive waste services, please visit the company website at www.jpmascaro.com.