(upbeat music) - The Michigan Recycling Coalition and the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy are celebrating 40 years of progress.

Today, we discuss the state's mission to increase the recycling rate and grow its circular economy on West Michigan Week.

(upbeat music) State officials are prioritizing tripling Michigan's waste diversion rate, what will it take to get there and build out a circular economy?

Here to discuss our Daniel Schoonmaker, Executive Director of the West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum, and Matt Flechter, Recycling Market Development Specialist with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.

Daniel, your group held an event this week with manufacturers and their leaders.

And there's some data from that discussion.

If you don't mind, I'm gonna start out with some of that.

Less than 20% of disposed material in Michigan is recycled.

400 to $600 million worth of material is disposed of every year.

Hypothetically 85% could be recycled and the vast majority of stakeholders are not closing the loop.

So some big bullet points to dig into there.

Does it catch people's attention to see those numbers presented?

- Yeah, I think so, I think people have a natural inclination to support recycling and when organizations like MEYER for instance, and they survey the customers, they find that the vast majority of them, if they follow any environmental issue, it's recycling and they all wanna see the things that they all want to see the supported by local businesses and by local communities.

And there is along that, I think it under-appreciation for the value that advancing a circular economy will play in the state's efforts to decarbonize its economy and highlighting one, how Michigan performs in comparison to its peers, which is not awesome.

And the opportunity that is literally being thrown away into our landfills and the waste energy facilities, that could be taken out and sent directly into the supply chain with our states, which is in the process of rebuilding itself as the manufacturing capital of the world.

I think seeing these numbers and having these discussions and hearing about of our organization's prior work and partnership with the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, Energy to advance these things, including going out actually into the landfills and selling for this material and finding out what's there and what's value, people really do respond to that and get thinking about how they can improve their own activities, which while there are a lot of low hanging fruit for both businesses and citizens to begin advancing there, the larger process of figuring out how to close that loop for manufacturers, there is a lot of retooling and reprocessing that that has to happen for them to begin making use of the material that's being disposed of in the States.

- Yeah, it almost like there's this main street view, which is okay, I'm gonna put my bottles and cans, plastics, cardboard out in a bin, put it at the end of the driveway, but there is this industrial side to recycling.

And Matt, I know the state has been reaching out to private companies and seeing the value, where do you make those connections where industry sees so much potential in this future view of a circular economy?

- Michigan right now is going through a paradigm shift.

We have a long history of supporting recycling in the state.

We had one of the first deposit laws, like you mentioned, and we had some of the first curbside recycling programs.

And somewhere along the way, other states passed us by.

And so 20 years ago, as the recycling market development specialist at the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, we began to build a team and that team includes Dan and the work that you do at the Sustainable Business.

Your work and all of the other organizations that are making a difference.

And so that paradigm shift is we're seeing that Michigan circular economy has connections to not only protecting the environment but also creating jobs and supporting the economy.

And through that, we're also seeing the great connections to climate and making sure that as businesses set their sustainability goals, they can make the connection to using materials differently and not putting them in the hole in the ground but rather keeping them circulating in the economy as well as equity, making sure that all residents, all businesses have access to recycling and the advantages of making sure we're moving the materials into the economy rather than burying them forever.

- I know both of you have now touched on climate, so let's just go there.

How does advancing a circular economy fit into the state's climate goals and its agenda?

- I think if we talk about the State of Michigan as an entity and the multi-circular process that it recently completed with the Michigan Healthy Climate Plan, advancing circular economy is certainly a part of it.

It probably doesn't get as many pages as it likely deserves with all with, for lack of a term sexy issues that I think are easier to talk about.

But it's well recognized, it's an important need for the states and something that it is well on the way to advancing through the work of EGLE over the past several years and its partners, through the Renew Michigan Fund with similar initiatives.

And there is probably groundswell of activity within the state to advance these activities as part of decarbonization strategies.

I think right now we're finding that as private sector leaders begin to come to an understanding of what their contributions to climate change are and understanding within their supply chains how they can address it, they're beginning to look and understand the role and importance of addressing their waste streams, and again, closing that loop and beginning to find ways to use recycled content, especially from the materials that they're generating and to capture that and it takes some responsibility, which isn't currently a requirement to Michigan, but I think we find many of our global companies, they're currently dealing with these issues in their markets in other states and especially overseas in Europe.

And that is going to increasingly inform how companies interact with their supply chain as part of their climate goals, which though a relatively new conversation will become the norm of the near future here.

And in certain areas, especially food waste.

I think it's well understood the enormous contribution it has to decarbonizing and addressing climate within our state and our nation.

- There's no doubt that having materials and recycling in the climate plan is a huge step for the state.

One thing that I think about a lot is one of those individual actions that somebody can take on an individual level to affect the climate and making sure that we're thinking about decarbonization, meaning getting carbon out of the economy, but also those action steps that an individual can take.

And so recycling and not producing food waste is a great first step, it has direct impacts, you're reducing the amount of material that's going into the waste stream, you're thinking about reuse, composting, recycling, and those are action steps that we can all take that have an impact.

At the same time, we can look at circular economy.

We've used that word a couple of times now.

So what does circular economy mean?

That means thinking about how the materials that you buy every day are gonna find their way back into new products.

Ideally made here in Michigan and West Michigan in particular has a great history of manufacturing and some great leaders in the furniture manufacturing industry that are bringing those materials back.

So when we think about climate goals, people are gonna go to where their best position, like what are we already doing and thinking about how they can tweak and move those processes.

So think about a furniture manufacturer that was looking at how they can reduce the amount of waste generated.

They may be thinking about their manufacturing process but now companies are starting to think how they reach down through the supply chain to your curb, to make sure that we're getting materials back into the products that you buy and creating a system when you're done with their product, that it can come back in and be recycled and refurbished and turn back into a new product.

Those are the types of things that have direct climate impacts and create jobs at the local level.

- Yeah, it's interesting, you brought up that circular economy and explaining it, I own some baseball caps and on the flip of the tag it says, made with two plastic bottles.

So I think that puts it into perspective of how companies are repurposing products.

There's probably what I would say, a spotlight on Kent County, and that is the South Kent landfill and where we're seeing this potential to be close up and personal to this circular economy and that is an industrial park that will deal with solid and organic waste.

Maybe explain that to our viewers, because I think you'll get a really good sense for what we're looking at here.

- So over the past four, five years, the Kent County Department of Public Works has been advancing its Kent County Sustainable Business Part Concepts, which recently hit some major milestones in which it was able to able to secure planning agreements with its key tenants of the industrial park and is beginning to develop out the plans for something that will likely reimagine how municipal solid waste is managed in the greater West Michigan area over the next decade, directly taking materials from the recycling and waste streams and turning them into marketable products.

The flagship of which is an in demand roofing product and having a global company establish a manufacturing site on land that's in a different generation would become more landfill, but now it's going to be a manufacturing operation that's gonna take things that were gonna be thrown away.

Paper, low grade plastic products, turning them into ceiling, turning them into roofing tiles and making commercial buildings with them.

And meanwhile, like using that activity to seed other entrepreneur ventures and build out that industrial hub.

So you have people working in original energy, people working in organic management, traditional recycling interests, all while making recycling more convenience and profitable for the larger community in West Michigan area in partnership with economic development interests and the states and as many stakeholders as can be involved.

And before I turn over, Matt also highlight that I think that's the most exciting largest project.

There are probably a good two dozen other initiatives that have recently come along with a smaller scope that I think are making very impactful and important contributions conversation as well.

Like Goodwill has a new product based on the remanufacturers of toy flakes, so grinding up toys.

Recent generational improvements to the City of Holland.

So I think where I wanna highlight how awesome the Kent County project is.

But I think West Michigan has become, because just a hot bit of this activity already.

- Yeah, there's no doubt, I don't know about you, but I don't picture a future that looks like Wally with trash everywhere, I picture a future where we do circulate those materials back into the economy.

I can see in my 22 years working in recycling, I can see a huge shift.

And so the West Michigan Sustainable Business Park, the thinking that's behind that, we're not going to create more landfills, we're gonna think about what that complex system is gonna look like and begin to get the right partners at the table, the public sector, and the private sector, looking to solve those market challenges, to move material into new products and Dan is right, it's not just a sustainable business park, we've got a sea change that's happening right now, where people are thinking, how do we make sure that those materials keep circulating in the economy?

Think about Wammies with organics and thinking about powder paint and manufacturing through InnovaCoat.

These are all examples in West Michigan that are getting attention nationally because of the work that the businesses are doing right now, and working with their public sector partners to make sure it's successful.

One of the projects that I'm really proud of working with EGLE is called Next Cycle Michigan, so Next Cycle is an incubator that grows business opportunities, and it also brings partners to the table to help fund them.

So the work that we do, it can't be done, it's not only done with government funding, it's done with the private sector funding and creating those opportunities to shift that system to make it work better so that we can have more jobs, reduce climate impacts and protect the environment.

And the amount of excitement that's coming into this state in this space is more than I've ever seen before.

And it's gonna to be part of it.

- How much innovation are you seeing from companies?

Are you seeing existing in industry leaders that have developed new departments that look into this?

Or are we seeing just innovators and entrepreneurs stepping up to the plate?

- So it's both and the first thing that comes to mind for me is this corporate leaders are starting to say, how are we solving this problem?

So they're setting sustainability goals.

And then they're starting to look down into the supply chain where that material comes for the products they make, whether it's a chair or a car, and they're thinking, oh no, the system isn't working, it's all going to the hole in the ground.

How do we get it out and get it in there?

So then they're thinking about those innovations that need to happen throughout that supply chain in a complex system.

And that's when their entrepreneurs come in.

So sustainability goals and entrepreneurship works really well together because those solutions are being provided by business owners that have an idea and are thinking, how do we grow this?

How do we solve that problem to address that gap in the supply chain?

And so we're seeing like robotics and AI being a major change in the growth in this industry, primarily because of labor challenges, but also because of quality.

When you put something in the recycling bin, the quality matters.

If you put something into that that shouldn't have got in there, we've gotta get that out, we gotta make sure you're doing it correctly.

But when you don't, we need support.

And that's gonna be a person right now, but now we're seeing more and more robotics come in to help improve the quality, so that's innovation right there.

That's the type of complex system where we're getting support all the way along to grow those jobs.

- Where are some of the gaps?

I know that you had an analysis and it's lengthy.

I skim through it, but where are some of the gaps that you know need immediate attention to really vault all of this into moving it forward?

- Yeah, so first there's no sense recycling something if it doesn't have an end market, where else is it gonna go?

So you can't wish cycle something.

You can't wish that it's gonna turn into something.

You have to grow those end markets.

So I always think about the end market first.

However, there are many, many materials that are supply limited.

So we're not supplying enough material to make the things that we want, whether it's the hat out of the two bottles, there aren't enough bottles, there are too many in the landfill.

How are we gonna make a new hat if we don't get the bottles?

So that you go down into the processing.

How do you process more material?

How do you get more materials recovery facilities are called?

And so that's at the processing gap and then there's the collection.

So there's legislation pending right now to create benchmark recycling standards, which would say everybody should have access to recycling opportunities, which they don't right now.

So that you at least have a place to put those bottles so that's on the collection side.

And then obviously down to the bottom, talked about it before, knowing what goes in the bin before you put it in and making sure that education is there so that we're informing people about how, where and why we recycle.

That's a lot of gaps, but it's also at each point in that chain, you were thinking about what specific tasks we can do as the public and private sector together.

- Are we at an interesting point in time coming?

We're still in the pandemic, but markets broadly reopened at a certain point last year.

And we've had all these supply disruptions.

Is this a time when companies are rethinking when looking for certain parts that might be in the landfill, we can talk about solar panels.

We can talk about production of lithium ion batteries, whatever it might be, are we seeing more movement to fill that gap in the need?

- Go ahead, Dan.

- Yeah, and I think it's not to the pandemic alone, there's multiple pressures that are happening on companies in economy.

And we talked earlier about climate change and how that's inspiring a lot of new changes in innovation, especially of among our public trade companies.

And with that, not only are we seeing changes in the way people work both within their office space.

So companies like Whirlpool, for instance, it had a green team, now it has a green team but it's really like a green home team.

So all these people who used to be involved in their office initiatives and trying to figure out how to do office recycling.

Well, now it's a conversation about what it looks like, where they're actually working, which is in a kitchen, or home office or something.

People pursuing hybrid environments.

So we've at the very baseline, are beginning to re-understand what it means to be at home and at work and that's changing the economy, which has influences the office furniture make, the industry locally.

We're seeing generational changes inspired by climate change.

15 years it's gonna be difficult to not buy an electric vehicle.

So we have all of these new approaches to manufacturing and purchasing as a consumer that are gonna be coming align in the next decade or two and now I start thinking really scrapping your vehicle and figuring out out ways to capture that value, which companies like Pardinos are doing some incredibly innovative things for the new sustainability city, but you also had things like electric vehicles and figuring out your new waste streams for that and how to capture tho those valuable cobalt and rear earth materials, that black mass which is going to be incredibly valuable resource for our saving forward.

Or future casting, talking about things like solar panels, as such a large portion of our state's energy grid, most rural energies, now you're gonna have products that at their best are gonna last 10 to 20 years before they become obsolete.

And we can assume that like cell phones are gonna become obsolete before they're functionally broken.

That you're gonna have to figure out new ways to reuse, recycle.

And on top of that, there made the glass.

And every time you install solar field, you have five to 15% percent breakage just in transporting and putting out the panels.

And there aren't established ways to collect and recycle that valuable material, that's coming off of that.

So as far as an inflection point, we're at a point where due to the pandemic due to climate change, due to people just rethinking what it means to work and be a citizen.

You have people entirely rethinking how society works and the role of material management within that.

- Matt, we have got one minute, Matt, so.

- Yeah, so well said Dan.

I'm excited that people can actually think about, they know the word supply chain now, and I've been working in the supply chain for a long time.

And so when the pandemic came and people couldn't get toilet paper, I immediately thought this is a recycling issue, toilet paper, Great Lakes Tissue makes toilet paper out of cartons.

We're not able to get enough recycling out of the curb.

So your milk cartons, the paper in the milk cartons turns into toilet tissue in Michigan.

And so now it gave me a talking point, I can say, oh my gosh, so there's so many opportunities to connect that.

And so, yes, there are challenging times and big problems and lots of gaps, but there are also a lot of people working to solve those challenges and we're doing it together.

- Well, it's gonna be an interesting process to watch, watching innovation is always fascinating and seeing where we will be by the year 2035, 2050.

Matt Flechter with EGLE, thank you so much and Daniel Schoonmaker with the West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum, thank you both so much for joining us.

- Thank you, Patrick.

- Thank you, Patrick.

- And thank you for joining us, we'll see you again soon.

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