MPCA awards $5.3M to increase recycling market capacity in Minnesota

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has announced it will provide $5.3 million to 11 grant recipients for projects intended to build lasting capacity to support recycling markets in Minnesota.

Healthy recycling markets convert recyclables into commodities and supply them to manufacturers to be made into new products. The businesses that process and use those commodities are critical to the system, MPCA says. Recycling market development works to expand these end markets to boost the demand for recycled materials.

This round of grant funding focused on projects that stabilize or grow recycling markets for the following priority materials:

• mixed paper and corrugated cardboard;
• glass food and beverage containers, window and door glass;
• polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP);
• plastic film, including retail bag film, pallet wrap film, agricultural plastic and boat wrap;
• textiles;
• solar panels; and
• gypsum and drywall.

The following companies were awarded grants:

• Eureka Recycling, Minneapolis, was awarded $850,000 to purchase an optical sorter to sort glass, paper and carboard on its container line. The project will cost $1,569,463.
• Cosmic Recycling, Fairfax, Minnesota, was awarded $850,000 to purchase a shredding and separation production line, clean metals production line and mobile shredding unit to recycle solar panels. The project will cost $1,020,001.
• GypCycle, Princeton, Minnesota, was awarded $850,000 to purchase equipment to convert used drywall into gypsum, which is estimated to cost $1.02 million.
• LEI Packaging, Chisago City, Minnesota, was awarded $850,000 to establish a sustainable production line in Chisago City. The production line will produce items made of molded fiber from an estimated 500-700 tons annually of mixed paper and corrugated containers. The project will cost $1.7 million.
• Prime Extrusion, Greenfield, Minnesota, was awarded $200,000 to purchase an extruder and shredder to process HDPE scrap. The project will cost $240,000.
• Polk County was awarded $850,000 to purchase a flip-flow separator integrator to clean glass for recycling. The county will also purchase a bag opener to capture recyclables that could not previously be captured because the system could not open bags. The project will cost $1,264,000.
• Employment Enterprises, Little Falls, Minnesota, was awarded $119,479 to purchase handling equipment and balers to recycle carboard, paper, steel, aluminum and glass from local businesses. The project will cost $149,348.
• FoamCraft Packaging, Owatonna, Minnesota, was awarded $149,519 to purchase a pelletizer and shredder to recycle foam waste. The project will cost $179,422.
• Slagle’s Demolition Landfill and Rolloff, Crass County, Minnesota, was awarded $131,607 to purchase equipment to mechanize and streamline the processing and sorting of recyclables. The project will cost $164,509.
• Atlas Games, Proctor, Minnesota, was awarded $99,359 to fund equipment and staff to increase Replay Workshop’s capacity to collect, process and marked color-sorted postconsumer recycled (PCR) HDPE and PP in smaller quantities. This project will cost $119,274.
• True North Goodwill Industries, Duluth, Minnesota, was awarded $350,000 to upgrade aging equipment and purchase new equipment to process up to 6,000 pocket coil mattresses per year, increasing its recycling of steel, foam, felt and wood. The upgrade will allow True North to add employees and will cost $421,000.

“We have a great mix of projects this year,” says Susan Heffron, a recycling market development coordinator with MPCA. “They address some hard-to-recycle materials and everyday recyclables that people put in their carts at the curb. Both are needed to keep markets strong and to divert materials from being landfilled.