ACC Chemical Recycling Alliance changes name

The Chemical Recycling Alliance of the Washington-based American Chemistry Council (ACC) has changed its name to the Advanced Recycling Alliance for Plastics (ARAP) to reflect its growing membership and variety of members’ advanced recycling technologies.

ARAP also has announced three new members: GreenMantra Technologies, Brantford, Ontario; Chevron Phillips Chemical, The Woodlands, Texas; and Ravago Recycling Group, with Americas headquarters in Orlando, Florida.

“ARAP and ACC’s Plastics Division members are working to help answer increasing calls for solutions that enable society to use and reuse our valuable plastic resources and to overcome growth barriers for these innovative technologies,” says Prapti Muhuri, ACC manager of recycling and recovery and staff lead for ARAP. “Advanced plastics recycling is one of the fastest-growing solutions to America’s plastic waste concerns and will help the plastics industry realize its goal of recycling or recovering all plastic packaging by 2040.”

“We’re excited to join the ARAP and work with our fellow members to educate the value chain about innovative technologies such as ours and how these technologies will help solve the problem of plastic waste,” says Jodie Morgan, chief executive officer for GreenMantra.

“It’s important for members of the plastics value chain to understand the promise of these burgeoning advanced recycling technologies,” says Ron Abbott, sustainability technical manager for Chevron Phillips Chemical. “We see resin producers as playing an important role in their growth.”

ARAP started 2020 with an advanced recycling workshop at February’s Plastics Recycling Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. The workshop helped educate attendees about these technologies, addressed concerns and questions from the value chain and offered attendees options for getting engaged with advanced recycling.

The conference workshop was a continuation of ARAP and ACC's Plastics Division members’ efforts in 2019. In addition to communicating the sustainability benefits and environmental potential of advanced recycling technologies, APRA members supported the advocacy for modernized requirements in Iowa, Tennessee, Texas, Illinois and Ohio that recognize advanced recycling as manufacturing operations instead of disposal operations. In previous years, similar was passed in legislation in Florida, Georgia and Wisconsin.

“We’re pleased to work with the advanced plastics recycling value chain that ARAP represents,” says Robert Render, commercial manager of Ravago Recycling Group. “These technologies produce a variety of different outputs and complement mechanical recycling, and ARAP’s work will help scale these technologies.”

“We are looking forward to working with our new members and our partner organizations to grow the work of ARAP in 2020,” Muhuri adds.

Advanced plastics recycling and recovery technologies can create a wide range of products from recovered plastics, such as plastic and chemical feedstocks, transportation fuels and crude oil.