When China’s plastic ban took effect in January 2018, recycling centers in Boise, Idaho, were forced to cut back on the plastics they could accept.
Plastics marked with plastic resin codes 3 through 7 were no longer accepted in curbside recycling carts, leading to frustration among Boise residents. “Our community is deeply committed to sustainability, so sending these plastics to the landfill was the last option for us,” explained former Boise Mayor Dave Bieter in a press release.
Fortunately for Boise residents, the city won a $50,000 grant to establish a local Hefty trash bag collection program that launched in April 2018. The original EnergyBag® Program, initiated in 2014, aimed to divert non-recyclable plastics from landfills by converting them into energy resources. However, this approach faced environmental concerns, particularly regarding the incineration of plastics, which can release pollutants and greenhouse gases.
In response to these concerns, Hefty rebranded the program as Hefty ReNew™ in March 2023, emphasizing more sustainable practices. The ReNew™ Program focuses on advanced recycling technologies, such the controversial process known as pyrolysis and sometimes referred to as “advanced chemical recycling,” to convert hard-to-recycle plastics into valuable resources like synthetic diesel fuel, thereby reducing reliance on fossil fuels and minimizing environmental impact. Critics argue that pyrolysis can emit pollutants, including carcinogens like benzene and dioxins, and may produce more greenhouse gases than traditional plastic production methods. Additionally, some studies suggest that pyrolysis often relies heavily on fossil fuels, with a significant portion of the output containing minimal recycled material.
Hefty commissioned an independent life cycle assessment conducted in 2022 to evaluate the environmental impacts of the Hefty ReNew™ Program, reporting that the study found that using program materials as fuel in cement kilns resulted in greater environmental benefits across various factors compared to landfilling.
What Is the Hefty ReNew™ Program?
The EnergyBag program allows participating households to place a variety of plastic products — such as food pouches, plastic utensils, plastic grocery bags, straws, and candy wrappers — into a special orange bag. When full, the orange bag can be tied up and placed in the curbside recycling bin. From there, it makes its way to the local recycling facility where it’s presorted, baled, and delivered to a local recycling partner.
In Boise, materials collected for the Hefty ReNew program are sent to a Firstar Inc.-owned pyrolysis facility that converts plastic waste into a energy and recycled composite lumber products. The process keeps plastics out of the landfills. It also reduces the amount of fossil fuel that must be extracted from the ground and keeps resources in use — ostensibly contributing to a more circular economy.
In an 2018 interview with KTVB, Colin Hickman, the communications manager for the City of Boise Public Works Department, reported the program’s success in its first two months. “We’ve collected about 54,000 pounds of non-recyclable plastic. You think about how lightweight plastic is, that’s an amazing amount of material. At its most basic level, that’s 54,000 pounds of material that would’ve been buried in the landfill forever and now is going to be given new life and be beneficially reused.”
Where Is the Program Running?
Besides Boise, the Hefty ReNew™ Program is active in northern Chicago, Cincinnati, Dayton and Central Ohio, Atlanta, Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, Tucson, Arizona, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. As with Boise and Omaha, Cobb County’s plastics will make their way to an approved end market. However, Omaha’s program has been lambasted by critics as harmful to the environment; the plastics collected in Omaha end their life cycle incinerated, not converted into fuel.
In 2018, Earth911 asked the program’s sponsor, Dow, and the incinerator operator’s response to the criticism.
“Using hard to recycle plastics as fuel keeps these materials out of landfills and acts as a stepping stone until pyrolysis technologies and the related infrastructure are further developed and in place at a viable scale,” said Jeff Wooster, Global Sustainability director at Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics, which sponsors the Hefty ReNew™ program, in response to critics of the Omaha incineration program. “Ultimately, each step helps bring us closer to increased chemical recycling that would enable the production of plastics from recycled chemicals.”
“Even though plastic incineration is being questioned,” said Dale Gubbels, president and CEO of materials recovery facility Firstar Inc., which processes EnergyBag materials, “these otherwise hard to recycle plastics displace the need for non-renewable fuel sources, such as coal and coke, in the manufacture of cement. Interim end-markets that use collected plastics as fuels, like cement kilns, offset the need for virgin fuel and extend the usefulness of waste plastics.”
Where Things Are Headed
By shifting to the Hefty ReNew™ Program, Hefty aims to address previous environmental issues and contribute to a more circular economy, effectively diverting hard-to-recycle plastics from landfills and converting them into valuable resources. It claims to have diverted more than 3,000 tons of waste since the program began almost a decade ago. However, the controversies surrounding pyrolysis highlight the importance of continuous evaluation and improvement of recycling technologies to ensure they provide genuine environmental benefits.
Although recycling isn’t the best thing we can do for the environment — ideally, we would prevent waste creation in the first place — it’s still preferable to treatment or disposal. Until such as time as single-use plastics are banned or consumers stop buying them, the Hefty ReNew™ program is a step that communities can take to keep plastics out of landfills and oceans.
Editor’s note: Originally published on August 3, 2018, this article was substantially updated to include the ReNew Program information in December 2024. Feature image credit: Hefty EnergyBag Program.
