(inspiring music) (inspiring music continues) - Welcome to Forum 360.

I'm Mark Welfley.

Thank you for joining us for our global outlook with a local view.

Plastics.

The very word evokes in us feelings of love and discomfort.

Undoubtedly, plastics make our life easier, but at times, we feel embarrassed throwing away single-use bottles and packaging.

We hope that they will wind up in the recycling centers instead of landfills, but we never know.

My guest today, Kevin Dressler, from Alterra in Akron, has only feelings of love for plastics.

A great love for plastics of all kinds, and lots of them.

Alterra's mission is to keep the same plastics circulating in our economy and out of the landfills and oceans.

And with millions of dollars of investment, they have proven a concept.

The company takes discarded and hard to recycle plastics and converts them back into raw material, which can be sold back to plastic manufacturers to make new plastic products.

Kevin Dressler is the Director of Business Development & Licensing at Alterra and a Northeast Ohio native.

And today, we'll talk about Alterra's advanced recycling technology, the future of plastics, and what we can do to be part of the renewable movement.

So, welcome, Kevin.

- Awesome, Mark.

Thanks for having me.

- You're welcome.

So, tell us about Alterra.

- Yeah, so Alterra is a advanced recycling company.

We're based here in, headquartered in Akron, Ohio.

So, we've developed a proprietary thermal liquefaction technology that converts litter or end-of-life plastics back into petrochemical feedstocks to be created into new plastics.

And so, we've created value to this waste, and we firmly believe, in order to solve plastic pollution that, you know, plastic belongs in the economy and not in the environment.

- Can you tell us a little bit about the process?

What, how does it work?

- Yeah, yeah.

No, absolutely.

So, we take chopped, dried, and densified mixed waste plastic, and it goes through our process.

We melt it down, and then, once it gets melted, imagine, like, a molten toothpaste.

It gets melted down, and then, it gets heated up again in the absence of oxygen, and that is where the molecular structures break back down.

And so, we are taking the plastic back to its original state, and then, once you get it to its original state, you can then take it to the petrochemical company as a feedstock to be made into new plastics.

- Okay, so all plastics, some plastics, which plastics?

- Yeah, no, that's a great question.

So, even, you know, I joined Alterra two years ago, and we'll get to a little about me later on, but even when I started, I didn't quite know.

I didn't know if you flipped over the bottom of a plastic milk jug, or a yogurt container, or what have you, that there's a number on it, and so, it's generally plastics one through seven.

So, talking PET, HDPE, LDPE, PVC, polypropylene, polystyrene, and other.

And so, Alterra focuses on polyethylenes and polypropylenes, and then, some polystyrenes and some of the other.

What we do stay away from is PVC, with its high chlorine content, and from PET.

PET has a great mechanical recycling capability, and that's generally, like, your water bottle, the actual bottle itself, but the cap and the label are the things that we can take.

And so, as Alterra, we see our advanced recycling technology as a compliment to mechanical recycling.

Mechanical recycling takes cleaner feedstocks, and so, what can be mechanically recycled is great and it's the things that cannot or are bound for the landfill, or they're dirty?

Those is what's comes to us to ensure that we keep it out of the environment.

- Okay.

When we were talking the other day, you had mentioned that it's, that you have a tabletop experiment, and that tabletop experiment may go great, but scaling that experiment up to, you know, to maximum, to size and efficiency, like, how is that done?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

So, Alterra has been around for 15 years.

Almost 15 years, excuse me.

2009.

And so, it was, the original lab bench scale was fit on this tabletop, and it was a box with some old lab equipment.

And so, the founder was from here, and then, a few others that joined, they were from the Akron area.

And it takes some time, as any new, innovative technology does, and for about six years, it was tabletop to warehouse size, and then, they were ready to go construct the facility, which we have in Akron on East Waterloo Road.

And there was a critical point, even within that six years, where they were gonna go build a commercial-scale one that they said, "Okay, it works in a batch, but we need to make it continuous, and I need to find a piece of equipment that can be scalable and continuous."

And so, even in between that, they changed the design right, you know, before construction a few years to ensure that something was scalable and viable, because if it's not scalable and it's not economically feasible, then, we're not solving plastic pollution.

And so, what we have at Akron is that scalable version.

And then, you would say, Mark, you would say, "Oh man, six years?

Millions of dollars?

I'm sure it worked out just right."

Well, not so fast, right?

And so, the commercial operations standpoint where we needed it to get reliable, right, and make sure it works continuously and reliably, 'cause that drives low CapEx and low OpEx.

They needed to, in Alterra, we needed to add a couple more pieces of equipment and unlock the pinch points, because what happens on the tabletop?

Well, when you scale it up and it happens, all these, you run into issues that you didn't think you were gonna run into.

So, it took another few years, and then, after that, we've been operating for five years, and the last three years from a fully continuous basis.

So, I mean, lots of blood, sweat, and tears, capital, and it didn't happen overnight, but very proud of what this team has done, you know, here in Northeast Ohio, you know, on the forefront of innovation with advanced recycling and plastics recycling, and we feel great where we're at today.

- Yeah.

So, how did this whole idea get its genesis in Akron?

- Yeah, it's great.

So, the founder, original founder was, they were living in Akron, and you know, they got the kit.

They had this idea to, you know, stop plastic from going to the landfill, and how can they execute that?

And the few founding members were from this area.

But then, you really look at it, and the talent that's in this area?

The, you know, what was the rubber capital of the world, right, which turns into kind of the polymer science capital pseudo in the world with the University of Akron.

It makes a ton of sense that plastics recycling, advanced recycling is happening here in northeast Ohio.

- So, is there synergy with the rubber capital of the world, and now, the plastics capital?

- Yeah, polymer science?

Yeah, polymer science?

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of synergies there because it drives the talent from the local market, and so, at Alterra, you know, even our president, Jeremy, he went to Walsh Jesuit, so he's local as well, and so, I just got done, the team just got done interviewing someone who's a University of Akron grad.

They have a year of experience in the chemicals industry, and hoping to extend a job offer to that person this week actually.

Maria Belicak, she's from Ohio State, and she's from the Cleveland area, so she's a, she just finished her first full year at Alterra as a chemical process engineer.

So, we've got all of this, from Ohio State, to the University of Akron, to this really just big focus, even from the operators and the maintenance team.

Just a strong set of talent in Northeast Ohio, and it's very exciting that we can continue to leverage those things and be, you know, innovative from that perspective, and kind of revive Akron's, probably a strong statement, but really bring something new and bolster something new within this area, you know, from rubbers, and now, to plastics and plastic recycling.

We're excited to partake in that.

- Yeah, that's really, that's really cool.

Going back to the founders of Alterra.

Like, who were they?

Were they engineers?

Were they business people?

Were they a combination of all those things- - Yeah, but that, yeah, no, it was a- - Combination, work together.

- A combination of entrepreneurs, and whether they were science-minded or finance-minded, you know, it really does take some special people to really kickstart this thing, because there's, you know, you don't operate in a box, let's say that, right?

So, if you're familiar with a larger corporation or et cetera, there's pretty defined rules and standards, and your roles and responsibilities fit, you know, here, but when you're an entrepreneur and you're trying to get something off the ground, there's many challenges you have to face, and you have to be flexible and adaptable, and really, some of the main things I feel from this, the team at Alterra is, the passion we all have for sustainability and cleaning it up.

You know, I, I myself became a new father a couple years ago, and actually welcomed another son just six weeks ago, so if you see bags under my eyes, may not be getting a little bit of sleep.

And you know, that kinda hit for me was how, how are we gonna leave this for the future generations, and how can we be a part of helping solve some problems, even though we all love plastic, mismanaging the plastic is an issue, and so, we wanna make sure that that's out of our environment.

- Yeah, thanks.

So, we hear the term renewable.

We hear the term circular economy.

Can you either differentiate between the two, or maybe they're the same, but just what does that mean?

What does it mean to be renewable or circular?

- Yeah, no, that's great, and so, from our perspective, renewables is giving something new life, right?

So, this plastic?

It's at its end of life.

It doesn't have a place to go, whether it's single-use plastics or things that could've been recycled that just didn't get the opportunity to, we want to take that and give it new life, and renew it into new plastics.

And the circular economy is where, okay, so plastic is made, it's taken by the consumer, the consumer uses it for its purpose, and then, where does it go from there?

We wanna capture that plastic, not let it go to the environment, whether it's mechanical recycling first.

If it doesn't fit that, it comes to Alterra, and then, we flip it back around so it's made into new plastic.

So, you literally are trapping the plastic in a circular economy.

In a loop, right?

And that's where we want it to stay.

- Okay, awesome, awesome.

If you're just joining us, my guest today is Kevin Dressler.

He is the Director of Development & Licensing for Alterra, which is an Akron-based company that works with plastics to take plastics back to raw materials, and then, sell the plastic raw materials back to manufacturers to reuse again.

And we're talking about the renewable economy.

So, switching over to more of a personal question, tell me about yourself.

Like, where'd you come from, and how'd you get here, and why you're here?

- Yeah, no, that's great.

Yeah, absolutely, I really appreciate you having me, and look, not to steal anything from LeBron, but you know, just a kid from Copley, right?

So, you know, went to Copley.

Grew up in Copley.

Grew up near my cousins, aunts, and uncles, and went through Copley High School.

Ended up going to the Ohio State University, got an electrical engineering degree right out of school.

I wanted to go work for Marathon Petroleum, and so, I worked at some of their refineries across the United States.

Started in Canton, and actually it was there in Canton while I was working that I met my wife, Teresa.

And so, we've been married for coming up on six years, and as I mentioned previously, we've got a two-year-old and a six-week-old, and you know, the two-year-old's probably the one keeping us up, as well as the infant, but, so, and she's from Doylestown, so, you know, more of a Northeast Ohio still roots.

And from there, took us to Illinois.

There was a refinery out in Illinois that Marathon had, so Teresa and I moved out there, and then, we went down to Louisiana where it was one of the biggest refineries in the United States in Garyville.

And I loved my time at Marathon.

Great opportunities, great learning, and developed skills there.

And so, at that time in about, I think it was 2020 or so.

Yeah, 2020 going into 2021, we were expecting our first son, and you know, family does mean a lot to us, and most everyone was back here, and so, we kind of looked at each other, and, you know, I had a great career going on at Marathon, and it was a tough decision, but wanted to open it up and look back here.

And so, you know, we were talking earlier is, you set yourself up for success, but then, also, there's a luck component, and our president, Jeremy, and I joke all the time because he had been getting from recruiters, like, "Hey, check this resume out.

Hey, check this resume out."

And then, I remember him telling me, he got so fed up that someone, you know, a recruiter asked him.

He said, "Okay, I only want someone with this experience, you know, has done these things, X, Y, and Z, and is from the area," type of thing.

And then, my name came across his desk, and we hit it off, and very happy that we did, because it drove my entrepreneurial spirit, 'cause I ended up going back, while I was at Marathon, getting my MBA from the University of Akron as well.

And it was the entrepreneurial aspect, and then, obviously, the sustainability aspect that kinda lined up with my previous experiences.

And then, as far as University of Akron goes and Ohio State, my grandparents went to Ohio State.

My dad, my mom went to Akron.

I went to Akron for my MBA.

My uncle, Zip is what we call him.

Uncle Zip because he was the mascot for the Zippies back in the day, and there's too many Daves in the family, so.

We had too many Uncle Daves, so he was Uncle Zip at that point.

So, it's great to be back, to be home.

We moved to Medina when we got back, and then, we built a home in Wadsworth.

So, we're in Wadsworth now.

So, you know, go Grizzlies, I guess.

I don't know if my Copley folk'll let me say that, but yeah, that's a little bit about me.

- Awesome, thanks.

So, let's get to some numbers.

Like, how much plastic can, or is Alterra capable of capturing, putting back into making feedstock, or, you know, raw plastic, and then, moving through the pipeline and selling to plastic manufacturers?

Like, what's the capability?

Put it in some simple terms.

- Yeah, no, that's great.

So, our smallest capacity design that we're licensing out is 50 million pounds per year.

It's hard.

It's a lot of plastic, right?

It's hard to a little bit wrap that around, and so, for perspective, with a quick Google search on how much a plastic bag weighs, like, a Walmart grocery bag or something, it's about six to eight grams.

So, you can get anywhere between 50 to 75 plastic bags in a pound, so however you wanna slice the math, it's between two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half billion plastic bags for one of our, for our smallest scale facility.

And so, when you think of it like that, it gives hope that we can do something about the plastic problem, and we can solve those things.

And so, when you look at the pipeline that Alterra has in even half of those projects, it's about a billion pounds of plastic per year if those come to fruition, and then, that's 50 to 60 billion plastic bags per year.

And that's just half of what we're really looking at across the globe.

- That's a lot of groceries.

- That's a lot of groceries.

That's right.

- Are you able to, well, you're licensing the technologies is what I'm hearing you say.

So, you have, like, maybe small, medium, and large type prototype facilities, or now proven concept facilities that when organizations come to you, you're able to fit their needs?

- Correct, yeah.

So, I'll kinda touch back a little bit.

So, right, we've got kind of the three, some of the three core buckets we've developed.

We developed the technology and we continuously develop it.

We operate it in Akron.

Proof of concept of new ideas, proof of concept of the commercial scale, and we'll bring customers in.

I think last year, we had 200 or so different people from these major petrochemical and recycling organizations come into Akron, Ohio.

And from there, we then found that to really solve plastic pollution and to get to market quick, but also, make the biggest impact, was to license this technology to them.

And so, you know, of the projects that I was mentioning previously, those are on four different continents, right?

So, Asia, South America, we've got stuff going on in Europe, and then, North America.

And when it comes to scale, it really is based off of feedstock and availability of waste plastic in the catchment area, and so, the designs we have are modular and repeatable.

So, if you want the smallest scale, you get the 50 million pounds, but if you want, if you wanna scale up to 100 million pounds or 150 million pounds, that's no issue.

We can modularize that with a common backend system to really gain the synergies and economies of scale to ensure, you know, that lowest CapEx and the best financial viability for our customers to really ensure that, you know, these things are standalone.

- Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah.

Looks like.

So, looking into the future, where do you see Alterra and where do you see plastics as an industry in the future, 10 years from now?

- Yeah, so if you take, that's a great question.

So, 10 years from now, very optimistic outlook on advanced recycling in general, and it's a very exciting market.

So, if you take some of, you know, our target customers.

You take, like, the ExxonMobil, you take the BASF, the Braskem, the Dow, the Sabic, et cetera, the BASF, and then, if you add up their circularity targets, their plastics recycling targets, whether it's mechanical and chemical, you know, we're talking in the magnitude of, you know, 20 billion pounds per year, right?

So, I got back to Alterra.

Its line of sight of projects is a billion pounds a year for half of our projects already.

Well, there's still 20x that to go, right, and so, there's just immense growth, and so, that's why we're excited and encouraged by the competition that is in this market to drive it, because, you know, all boats are gonna rise together.

I am competitive.

So, obviously, you know, we wanna be, do the best that we can, but we're in support of our competitors because it takes all of us to really solve that plastic pollution, because there is so much waste, and there's demand for it from the petrochemical companies.

- Stop for my own edification.

Like, how do you ship this gummy toothpaste stuff?

Resin.

This feedstock.

Like, is it trucks, trains?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- How does that- - Yeah, so ours is waxier at room temperature, but it can go via pipeline, it can go via barge, it can go via truck.

- Okay.

- Yeah, you would have a, you'd have a heated jacket around that to ensure that it can be pumpable and flowable at that point in time.

- Okay, thanks.

Share with us a couple of things that consumers can do to either engage with Alterra or just help in this circular economy related to plastics.

- Yeah, no, that's great.

You know, first and foremost, there's two things, is pick up litter if you see it, and don't litter.

So, you know, those are the two things we all can do every single day.

And then, it comes down to kind of education of yourselves, and if you're the adult of the household, educating your kids about the plastics and different types of plastics.

And I think this is kind of, you know, I'm happy that we're sitting down together, because getting the message out that plastics are getting recycled mechanically, and today in Akron, through advanced recycling, we're doing it, but soon, commercially, across the globe, more and more will be done.

You can feel good knowing that what you're doing is going to reap benefits.

You can feel good that if you put it in the recycling container, it's not gonna go to the landfill, because we are creating value for this.

and when value is created for something, it gets picked up.

It gets placed in the right location, and so, and then, the next thing.

We're part of the American Chemistry Council, and you can go to, you know, americanchemistrycouncil.org, I believe acc.org, and go look up, you know, some good educational information about the sustainable movement, plastics recycling, advanced recycling, and the circular economy.

- Yeah.

One of the main statements you had mentioned off air was that there are so many different types of plastic, and you said it on air here too, that I think we as consumers are programmed to believe that if it's that single-use water bottle, the standard bearer for what needs to be recycled, but there are so many other things.

I mean, just styrofoam cups as an example.

- Styrofoam cups, your milk jugs.

- To become aware that those are all recyclable, but then, like, do you put that styrofoam in your recycling with all the other recycling, or, you know, do you take it somewhere where only styrofoam is received, or how do you connect the consumer to that?

- So, in the United States, there's a long way to go from a waste management perspective, and so, you know, we're gonna, there's some things going on in the Houston area and in the Chicago area where major corporations are trying to do curbside recycling and get a handle on those things, and so, as that gets evolved, there will be specific bins for plastics in general.

And so, you know, we might not take the plastic water bottle because it's PET and it's good for mechanical recycling, but we'll take the label and the cap.

We'll take the grocery bags.

We'll take the Doritos bag, the Fritos bag, you know?

All of those things.

I mean, even, it's amazing how much plastic we use and single-use plastic.

I mean, the amount of, like, what is it, fruit snacks that my son goes through, and you're opening the thing and there's seven fruit snacks, and then, you're throwing it in the bin, right?

From the yogurt containers to, and even, like, your laundry detergent, right?

That's recyclable.

Plastic bags.

I mean, there are so many things that are recyclable now of what advanced recycling is adding on to what chemical, or what mechanical recycling can do, and that's the special part about it really is knowing, and that the hope that we're going, we're doing something about it.

There's people out there trying to solve this problem.

- Yeah.

In the 30 seconds or so that we have left, I've always been told, you know, when you are ready to recycle, like, I have a dog, and the dog has a little plastic tray.

There's food in there that we put that in, and there's that tray.

Do I rinse it out before I throw it away?

Do I separate the film lid from it?

Do I, you know, when it comes to bottled water, do I unscrew the cap and put it one place, and the... What, like, what's optimal here?

- Yeah, yeah, so, so one of the things about our technology that is great is we can take the dirtier feedstocks that most others can't, and so, you don't need to wash it.

That's what the beauty of it.

So, if it does make its way into, it's got food on it, and it's got dirt on it, and there's wood and paper, and it's at the landfill and you're trying to divert it out, we can take it.

Now, if you're like our president, Jeremy, who collects, and a few of us who collect from our local household, you just rinse it out because you don't want it to smell in your plastic bag before you bring it into the facility, right?

'Cause it might be, like, sitting in your car or something like that before you bring it into the facility.

You can go to our website and I'm sure, check out a couple pictures of Jeremy laying in front of the bunker of plastic with all of that, but yeah.

- Thanks.

- So, that's how I'll answer that is, our technology doesn't need it.

That's what makes it extremely robust.

But for the sake of human sanity and their smells at home, you probably wanna wash it out.

- Thank you for that clarification, I appreciate it, and for the interview.

Industry experts project that by 2050, our world will use three times the amount of plastics it uses today, and indeed, it is not that we use plastics, but how responsible we are with them.

That will make the difference in our environment.

Alterra's mission is to be part of the solution to plastic pollution.

I'd like to thank Kevin Dressler from Alterra for being here today, and encourage each of you to keep your mind open.

Until next time on Forum 360.

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