Great Lakes Circular Materials Roundtable: Post-Industrial Organics - Oct. 27, 2020
Overview
Our fourth Great Lakes Circular Materials Roundtable was hosted in late October 2020 and focused on post-industrial organics. Here's a quick recap, and some key takeaways and observations from our team:
Presentations were provided by these speakers:
Erik Petrovskis, Meijer
Todd Wilson, Perfect Circle Recycling
Mike Nicholson, Denali Water Solutions
Cliff Walkington, My Green Michigan & Hammond Farms
Roger Cargill, Schupan
Chad Antle, BioWorks Energy
Key Takeaways
More than 30% of materials sent to landfill in Michigan is organics. Decomposition of organic material generates quite a bit of harmful greenhouse gasses, and improving the management of post-industrial organics waste is a high environmental impact opportunity. Even greater opportunity exists now in matching generators of all scales to local solutions.
Landfill pricing, changing consumer preferences, and corporate and community-level goal setting are driving growth in waste reduction, diversion, and reuse. Regional progress in the private sector has been accelerated by the public sector and is being supported through programs like NextCycle Michigan.
Generators of organic waste have successfully diverted materials by employing a suite of solutions like onsite and offsite composting, anaerobic digestion, and other solutions. Technological improvements and market innovation is making onsite processing through digestion and composting more accessible for remote and lower volume generators.
Some high volume organic material supplies have unique chemical profiles unsuitable for traditional digestion like acidic liquids and some bioplastics, creating a regional gap in solution-providers and an industry-wide need for further processing innovation.
Processors of organic materials have several concurrent material streams like packaging, wastewater and filter cake. Many have successfully integrated processes to address these materials economically and at scale. Some challenges still remain around specific materials which further industry collaboration could address.
Processors typically enter contracts with businesses generating high-energy organic materials that are high-volume, low-contamination, and high-consistency, but are beginning to implement “milk runs” to improve collection for smaller volume generators. Likewise, small-volume generators within a region should collaborate directly to better understand how to handle and market their materials to processors.
Action Items
Solutions proposed during breakout sessions included ways the Materials Marketplace can help businesses and organizations:
For organic material processors, create wanted listings with your facility locations and detailed spec requirements.
For organic material generators, create available listings on the Materials Marketplace with generation site locations and supply details.
Start conversations with Materials Marketplace users with whom you could match supplies to solutions or with whom you can collaborate to overcome barriers related to volume, frequency, and location.
Keep solution-providers connected to collaborate on concurrent material streams and their challenges.
Continue networking and learning about organic materials solutions by attending the upcoming Networking Hour: Post-Industrial Organics on Friday, Oct. 30 from 11am -12pm ET via Zoom.
