Company unveils game-changing new facility to tackle age-old recycling problem: 'Absolutely necessary'

Have you ever noticed recycling arrows on the sides of your bread or produce bags? They show that those bags can be recycled, but you likely can't include them with your curbside recycling.

Fortunately, NOVA Circular Solutions in Fayette County, Indiana, is trying to change that.

WFYI reported that its company, NOVA Chemicals, usually makes new, non-recycled plastic. But with its new recycling facility, it'll use the materials it receives to make recycled, food-safe plastic.

While minimizing plastic should be the priority, recycling plastic does help us and the planet.

Thin, flexible plastics are tough to recycle properly. The Recycling Partnership says that these plastics get caught in recycling machines. Without solid systems to process this plastic, we're doing more harm than good.

All that plastic ends up in landfills with the rest of the 400 million tons of plastic we produce annually. It then leaches into our waterways and soil, which means more microplastics get into our food.

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Plastic pollution also affects marginalized people disproportionately. Several studies have shown that microplastics negatively affect Black people more than people of any other race.

If companies changed their ways and used less plastic, marginalized communities would likely have fewer health issues. It would be a gradual fix, but it's possible.

"There's a lot of work going on throughout the industry to ensure that plastic products get recycled," said Alan Schrob, director of mechanical recycling at NOVA Circular Solutions, to WFYI, "whether they're extended producer responsibility programs that are being enacted or different states that are requiring recycled content as part of their plastics packaging."

He continued, "Those things in and of themselves are creating a market by which the products that we're going to make in Connersville and any future facility we build absolutely necessary."

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If you can't recycle your bags now, there are other ways you can reuse them. Cat owners can use them to collect kitty litter. You can also use them as trash bags for small trash cans.

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Stricter regulations on companies 🏛️