Sarnia plastics recycler wants your black plastic trays and containers

Sarnia, Ont.-based ReVital Polymers Inc. is fighting back against what can only be called a fake news story about black post-consumer plastic.

Contrary to recent media reports published throughout the GTA, black post-consumer plastic can be recycled – and ReVital wants as much of the material as it can get.

ReVital describes itself as Canada’s first recycling plant that combines a Container Recovery Facility and a Plastics Recovery Facility under one roof. The process of transforming incoming mixed plastic bales into recycled plastic pellets takes less than 25 minutes to complete. ReVital plans to expand the range of materials it accepts from recycling programs next year. Clients in the household goods, construction and automotive sectors purchase ReVital’s recycled plastic pellets to make a range of new products.

“No one I know thinks it’s right to use a plastic product or package once and then send it to the landfill,” said Keith Bechard, ReVital’s chief commercial officer. “In Ontario alone, about 1,405 tonnes of black plastics are generated annually. That would fill more than 70 transport trucks parked end-to-end stretching for 1.7 kilometers. That is a significant amount of valuable material and that’s why we invested in the technology to recover black plastics.”

Bechard said recent Toronto media reports claiming that black plastic trays and containers are unrecyclable have caused great confusion for the public, not just in Ontario but across Canada. “The Toronto media reports were specific to that community’s recycling program and their recycling service provider,” he said. “The City and their service provider’s limitations are not reflective of the rest of the recycling industry in Ontario and Canada.”

In fact, municipalities across the province of Ontario and beyond – including Ottawa, Kingston, Durham, and Windsor – have been shipping mixed plastics to ReVital’s 188,000-square-foot plastics recycling operation since it opened in February 2017.

Bechard said the market for black recycled plastics is strong. “In fact, we turn most of these high value materials into customized and highly engineered resins that are tailored to specific customer end-use applications,” he said. “This customized approach ensures ReVital improves recovery rates for end-of-life products and packaging, extends material value and utility, and allows our automotive and consumer household product customers to manufacture new products that incorporate recycled content.”