Around 8,000 communities across the United States have some variation of a recycling program that collects plastics from homes and finds a new life for it. These programs are widely diverse in accepted materials and success rates. Equally important are postindustrial scrap management programs at thousands of production facilities across the country. Here in Orlando, a completely different community has emerged with its own unique recycling program. Exhibitors are showing their equipment at its best and churning out parts in the process.

And what will happen to those parts, will they be tossed in a dumpster and forgotten? Not at NPE. It wouldn’t do. But it takes a coordinated effort to collect the materials flying out of machines at breakneck speed and irregular intervals, break them down and get them on to a new owner who can turn them into new products. Fortunately, exactly the right people for the job will be on hand.

A collaborative effort between Commercial Plastic Recycling (CPR), WEIMA, Conair and the PLASTICS industry association has set the ambitious goal of collecting and recycling 100% of the demonstration products produced.

CPR is collecting materials throughout the exhibition halls, tracking when demonstrations are scheduled and emptying bins as they fill. The Tampa-based recycler has around 60 staff on hand to move recyclable demonstration products to the recycling area outside the west hall, where tents shelter equipment, recyclers and attendees from Florida’s frequent spring rains.

There, WEIMA equipment is shredding and grinding up that waste for efficient transportation, using a WLK 15 single-shaft shredder and two LM 600/1000 granulators. The shredder is used in conjunction with one granulator to process bulky materials. The second granulator is used for items that do not need to be pre-shredded.

Thanks to careful traffic planning, overhead ductwork and acrylic safety walls, NPE attendees can walk through this temporary plant as it’s operating and watch as waste plastic is shredded and granulated.

From there, attendees can proceed inside to the Sustainable Solutions Showcase, located inside the west hall. There, exhibitors will demonstrate next steps in the processing of recycled materials — from regrind to pellets to new parts.

Conair is in the Recycling & Sustainability Solutions Zone (located inside the south hall), using a conveyor and metal detection system to feed a Viper 1736 granulator. This granulator features Conair’s Smart Granulator control (SG Optimizer), which tracks energy use and load on the machine, controls grinder operation and enables predictive maintenance. The system also includes a negative pressure evacuation component to remove dust and fines to produce regrind that is ready for use.

“As a member of the Plastics Industry Association’s recycling committee, I have set up similar systems at NPE in the past, but not to this scale and focus. With our collaboration with other equipment suppliers and with CPR, we will meet our goal of recycling 100% of plastic scrap generated at NPE 2024,” says Dave Miller, general manager, size reduction at Conair.

Roots of Recycling at NPE Orlando

CPR immediately saw a need for on-site size reduction after being involved in the 2015 show, when 48 truckloads of material were used to carry plastics from Orlando to Tampa. “Now that WEIMA is doing the grinding operation on-site, that reduces the volume that we have to ship back to Tampa. We are shipping 1,000-lb boxes instead of 200-lb boxes. That really helps, because transporting air just kills you,” says Ben Benvenuti, CEO at CPR.

WEIMA has seen similar scenarios play out in other industries it operates in. The “Destroy Responsibly” campaign, now more than 10 years old, began with separating and compacting materials on-site at events in the wood industry.

According to Audrey Brewer, marketing manager at WEIMA, the companies’ areas of expertise complement each other well. Education, coordination, size reduction, logistics and market identification will all be critical to success.

“CPR has such a knowledge base of where plastic can go and what it can become, which is beautiful, because WEIMA focuses on getting it to the state where it can be taken elsewhere,” Brewer says.

In 2018, 89% of plastic produced at the show was collected for recycling.  Recycling plans for 2021 were well under way when that show was canceled, and the team had already decided to go even bigger.

“We went through a mourning stage for all the planning work that had already been done, and then we asked them ‘are we still going to do this in 2024?’, and PLASTICS emphatically said, ‘Absolutely’,” Brewer recalls.

Patrick Krieger is vice president for sustainability at PLASTICS. “If you compare NPE to other trade shows, we have far and away the highest waste diversion rates,” Krieger says. “But we don’t want to stop there. One of our values is to move toward and promote a circular plastics economy. So, we want to make sure that we are diverting, reusing and repurposing as much plastic as possible at our show.”

Organizers, Exhibitors and Educators Contribute to Multifaceted Sustainability Conversation

The recycling effort at NPE 2024 will need many more collaborators to be a success, especially participating exhibitors. “We are telling all exhibitors that it is our goal for 100% of plastic on the show floor to be recycled, and we’re hopeful they will share that commitment,” says Maureen Cameron, senior director of operations at PLASTICS.

The recycling initiative will be part of a much wider conversation about sustainability at NPE. “NPE is going to offer a really interesting experience for the wide variety of people who show up, including over 30 educational sessions on recycling and sustainability,” Krieger says. NPE attendees can choose sessions from the “Sustainability, Recycling and Circularity” track, which will include topics such as new materials, advanced recycling technologies and spill prevention.