Meeting ambition with action

If a company has an ambitious recycled-content goal and its deadline isn’t too far in the distance, how does it get there in time?

It’s a question numerous brands have been trying to answer with varying degrees of success as they strive toward 2025 and 2030 goals for recycled resin use.

For a company like Advanced Drainage Systems Inc. (ADS), the response has been to act in the present in hopes of securing the future.

The Hilliard, Ohio-based company, featured in the cover story, is one of the largest plastics recyclers in North America and has set a target of procuring 1 billion pounds of postconsumer and postindustrial plastic by 2032. ADS recycled a total of 540 million pounds during its 2024 fiscal year. That still leaves a long way to go before 2032, but the manufacturer of corrugated thermoplastic pipe and other water management products in the stormwater and septic wastewater industries is hard at work closing the gap as it sources high-density polyethylene and polypropylene (PP).

The company allocated $36 million during its 2024 fiscal year toward equipment upgrades at its U.S. recycling facilities. Examples include replacing aging pelletizers and installing state-of-the-art vented extruders capable of removing moisture from ADS pellets.

ADS also has invested in implementing bulk handling systems to increase capacity and even is transitioning to reusable totes for internal storage.

The company has gotten involved with industry organizations such as the Washington-based Association of Plastic Recyclers and The Recycling Partnership, in particular, its Polypropylene Recycling Coalition, which provides grant funding to recycling facilities to help them sort more PP.

As of June, the coalition reports that 58 recycling facilities have received $14.5 million in grants since its 2020 founding, and 57 million new pounds of PP have been recovered annually for processing in growing domestic markets.

Through its ADS Foundation, the company made a $1 million donation last year to the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Advanced Materials Center, which is conducting ongoing student research projects covering topics such as life cycle analysis, new polymer blends for pipe manufacturing, additive manufacturing, sustainable concrete materials, PP degradation mechanisms and new test methods for the plastic pipe industry.

Scott Fredrickson, a category manager of recycled materials and sustainability at ADS, sums up the journey toward 1 billion pounds well: “If tomorrow I flipped a switch and we were able to utilize a billion pounds of recycled material, we wouldn’t know where to get it all, and there’s not enough recycling within the United States, even within North America, to feed that demand.

“We view joining these industries as, ‘Hey, we’re pro-recycling, we’re pro-recycling expansion.’ Anything we can do to help and kind of put our money where our mouth is on helping expand access to recycling and to get more people recycling and to get the word out is worthwhile.”