The RightCycle Program will accept flex-film plastic packaging from Kimtech and KleenGuard products.

Kimberly-Clark Professional, a Roswell, Georgia-based company offering contamination control solutions for cleanrooms and laboratories, has expanded The RightCycle Program, the first large recycling effort for nonhazardous lab, cleanroom and industrial personal protective equipment (PPE) waste. Flex-film plastic packaging from Kimtech and KleenGuard products will now be accepted for recycling through the program.

“This is a significant step in addressing a challenging waste stream that currently has very low recycling rates compared with other commodities, such as paper and cardboard,” says Mike Haley, vice president of PPE at Kimberly-Clark Professional. “As the program continues to grow and evolve, we remain committed to finding ways to expand our recycling capabilities in order to help our customers reach their goals and to deliver on our purpose of better care for a better world.”

Since 2011, RightCycle has empowered more than 900 customers to divert 3.7 million pounds of waste, the company says.

Film and flexible packaging are composed of various substances, and recycling them requires a specific approach. In 2019, only 5 percent of managed plastic waste in the United States was recycled, according to scientists with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. RightCycle has established partnerships and processes to properly recycle these items.

In addition to plastic packaging waste, RightCycle collects previously hard-to-recycle PPE, such as garments, masks, gloves and goggles. These items are then recycled by regional partners that create new plastic pellets, which are used to produce consumer products and durable goods, including flowerpots and lawn furniture, benches and bicycle racks.

Originating in the United States with a few scientific manufacturing customers, RightCycle is now available in nine countries across Europe and North America with a wide range of customers that include universities, zoos, laboratories, manufacturing facilities, breweries and a variety of other businesses.

RightCycle contributes to Kimberly-Clark’s global 2030 ambition, which is to improve the lives of 1 billion people in underserved communities around the globe with the smallest environmental footprint. Kimberly-Clark says it understands that a strong and enduring focus on safeguarding natural systems is just as essential to helping people live a better life. To that end, the company is focused on the areas where it can make the biggest difference – climate, forests, water and plastics.

Irving, Texas-based Kimberly-Clark aspires to be at the forefront of the transition to a circular, reuse economy by reducing waste, promoting waste-handling system improvements and innovating new ways of providing people with the products that they need to live their best lives, the company says. In 2021, it expanded RightCycle in Europe to other categories to include the recycling of plastic dispensers and hand towels. According to Kimberly-Clark, this will provide the company with an even greater opportunity to reduce its environmental footprint in collaboration with its customers.

The initiative includes a research project to study the use of depolymerization for feedstock production.

Fluence Analytics, a venture capital-backed company based in Stafford, Texas, that is experienced in continuous polymer and biopharma analytics and process optimization, has announced a circular economy initiative anchored by a phased depolymerization research project. The new project starts with a technology and market assessment of the circular economy, specifically focused on the conversion of postuse plastic into reusable raw materials. Fluence Analytics has partnered with its academic research partner, Tulane University’s Energy Institute, and one of its investors and customers, Diamond Edge Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corp., on the project.

The study already has provided insights into the circular economy, including a comprehensive view of available technologies in the sector, the company says. Using these insights, Fluence Analytics has developed a road map for subsequent phases of activity targeting implementation of analytics and control solutions to enable economic scale-up of new depolymerization technologies. The next phase of the project is a technical proof of concept. The breakdown of plastic materials into feedstocks that are then used to create new products is one of many proposed solutions toward a more sustainable future. Over time, the company says, this will reduce the volume of plastic pollution in Earth’s environment.

“When we were still incubating on Tulane’s campus, we always envisioned enabling more sustainable production of polymer materials. ACOMP, our real-time polymer analytics solution that improves operational efficiency, has already contributed toward that objective, but the possibility of directly participating in the circular economy via new depolymerization technologies is a completely new dimension for us,” says Alex Reed, co-founder, president and CCO of Fluence Analytics. “We now have a chance to work with the industry to fully close the loop, both in process control and renewable feedstocks, across polymer production, which is a driving force in our company’s mission.”

An example of depolymerization is the conversion of polyethylene back to ethylene. According to Fluence Analytics, the advantage of going back to the chemical building block is the ability to leverage existing assets to polymerize the monomers back into polymer with the properties of newly created material. Mechanical recycling, while very useful for a range of applications, has several challenges due to additives and altered properties of reprocessed material, the company says.

The updates give some stores the ability to opt in to the bottle deposit program.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has signed a bill that will make changes to the state’s bottle deposit program. Reynolds approved Senate File 2378 into law June 17, which lists provisions for the state’s bottle deposit program, including handling fees, refund value, applicability to certain beverages and acceptance of beverage containers, providing penalties and effective date provisions.

SF2378 changes the program to allow grocery and convenience stores to opt-in to the bottle deposit program as long as the store has a food establishment license and that its location is in a county with a population of more than 30,000 and within 10 miles of an approved redemption center or if the store’s location is in a county with a population of 30,000 or fewer and within 15 miles of an approved redemption center. In those instances, consumers will need to return their containers.

According to a report from The Daily Nonpareil newspaper, Council Bluffs, Iowa, these changes aim to boost the number of redemption centers in the state by tripling the fee paid by beverage distributors to the redemption centers. The update states that reimbursement will be 1 cent per container for containers accepted from a dealer agent and 3 cents per container for containers accepted from a participating dealer or redemption center.

Additionally, a legislative fiscal committee will hold a meeting in the legislative interim preceding the 2026 regular legislative session to review the enforcement of SF2378.

Mick Barry, owner of Des Moines, Iowa-based Mid America Recycling, says these latest changes to the state’s bottle deposit program are “decent.” He says the bill’s higher handling fee will help grocers and existing redemption centers build up their recycling infrastructure. He adds that the meeting to review the enforcement will be beneficial for the program.

Barry says the downside of the update is that he thinks many grocers that are near a redemption center and that have a food establishment license will opt out of the program, making it less convenient for consumers trying to return containers.

“The ultimate bad part of this is it’s inconvenient to the consumer,” he says. “The public has been inconvenienced dramatically. That has been the unintended consequence.”

The company's updated TrashBot Zero smart bin is driving the new brand vision.

CleanRobotics has undergone a complete brand refresh driven by the launch of the next generation of its flagship product, TrashBot Zero. 

“We’re so excited about the latest TrashBot Zero,” says Charles Yhap, CleanRobotics’ CEO. “As we move to the next phase of the company’s growth, we’re updating our look and feel to align with the values that drive us. People come to us for the innovative technologies we’ve built around zero waste and a circular economy; But stay for the data-driven insights we can provide to advance recycling and composting programs.”

CleanRobotics applies artificial intelligence, or AI, and robotic solutions. The TrashBot smart bin has been launched internationally in airports, hospitals and several high-traffic facilities.

The company says its new branding is rooted in the its values for innovation, zero waste, recycling and data-driven user education. CleanRobotics looks to position itself as a strong technology parent brand anticipating future innovations in addition to TrashBot.

TrashBot is a smart bin that ensures the capture of recyclables, improves on-site and user-facing waste diversion 300 percent more accurately than human beings, CleanRobotics says.

The new generation of TrashBot Zero features a sleek exterior design with a robust analytics dashboard, giving facilities unprecedented data into their waste and custodial operations. Made in America with recyclable materials, TrashBot Zero is here to change the way facilities solve for zero-waste, the company says.

The company’s recyclable packaging solution is certified to reduce carbon emissions 35 percent compared with traditional unrecyclable packaging.

Dow, with global headquarters in Midland, Michigan, has announced that its recyclable packaging solution, enabled by Innate TF polyethylene resins for tenter frame biaxial orientation (TF-BOPE), is certified in China to reduce carbon emissions by 35 percent compared with traditional unrecyclable packaging materials.

According to a news release from Dow, TÜV Rheinland, a global testing service provider, certified that the all-polyethylene (PE) recyclable packaging created with Dow’s Innate TF-BOPE emis 0.0194 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) during its life cycle, while traditional stand-up pouch packaging made with PE and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) composite materials emits 0.0297 kilograms CO2e.

Dow says the verification and validation process included site visits to Fujian Kaida, the packaging manufacturer in China, and Luhai, a Chinese integrated waste management company, as well as product document reviews and interviews with operational, technical and environmental, health and safety subject matter experts from Kaida and Luhai to calculate carbon emissions of this recyclable packaging.

“This certification is a testament to the value of Dow's recyclable packaging solutions in supporting customers to achieve their carbon reduction goals,” says Bambang Candra, Asia Pacific commercial vice president of Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics. “Adopting recyclable packaging is a step in the right direction to advance a sustainable future, and we strive to continue working closely with our partners to promote the circular economy for plastics.”

According to Dow, Liby has adopted this recyclable packaging solution for its laundry pods. Liby estimates that 4 million kilograms of CO2e can be saved per year by 2025 by replacing its unrecyclable flexible packaging laundry pods with Dow’s recyclable packaging solution.