Brightmark’s solution diverts plastics from the environment, incinerators, and landfills—then recaptures the valuable resources in this waste and keeps it in the circular economy. Our Plastics Renewal™ technology promotes circular manufacturing by converting the raw materials within waste plastics into new products, including the components used to manufacture new consumer products like jackets or headphones.
Our stance on single-use plastics
Brightmark believes other policies, practices, and technologies are needed to address plastic pollution, including restrictions on single-use plastics and increased funding for recycling efforts. Still, advanced recycling technologies can play a vital role in the waste hierarchy in managing plastic waste.
While this process dramatically reduces plastic waste through a circular solution, we fully support the reduction of single-use plastics.
The facts of plastics renewal
The benefits of plastics renewal
- We take plastics from all streams, plastics 1-7—some previously unable to be recycled—and convert them into valuable new material, 83% of which can be used in circular manufacturing.
- Our circularity center in Ashley, Indiana, will convert 100,000 tons of mixed plastic waste a year.
- Our technology is incredibly efficient—93% efficient. For every unit of energy input, we produce 11 units of energy.
Health and safety of the plastics renewal process
Plastics renewal does not involve incineration or combustion of any kind. We operate our process in an anaerobic environment, removing the oxygen that would be required for combustion. Our technology uses pyrolysis to break the chemical bonds so that raw materials can be broken down into their original chemical chains and then transformed into other valuable products. Brightmark’s goal is, over time, for these chemical chains to be used predominantly as building blocks for plastic products, such as headphones, rain jackets, and sneakers, thereby decreasing the need for new plastic production.
