Brightmark LLC, a circular innovations company with a mission to reimagine waste, announced its strategic partnership with Lewis Salvage, an independently-owned recycling company based in Warsaw, a location with the world's highest concentration of orthopedic design and manufacturing companies. By participating in Lewis Salvage's Minimized Landfill Recycling Program, the Brightmark Circularity Center in Ashley, Ind., will receive plastics for recycling from medical device companies, orthopedic implant manufacturers and packaging companies that were originally bound for landfills and incinerators. Year to date, Brightmark has been able to recycle approximately 400,000 pounds of plastic waste as a result of this strategic partnership, according to the release from Brightmark.
"We're proud to play an important role in reducing the amount of healthcare plastic waste going to landfills, and our strategic partnership with Lewis Salvage is a significant step towards achieving this goal," said Bob Powell, founder and CEO of Brightmark. "Our plastics renewal technology provides a crucial solution for recycling essential plastics at the end of their useful lifecycle, which assists vital sectors such as the healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing and transportation industries by providing a viable recycling solution that helps them achieve their sustainability goals and reduce their environmental footprints."
The United States produces 6 million tons of medical waste annually, with plastics accounting for about 25% of this total. The vast majority of this waste ends up in landfills or natural environments without adequate infrastructure to recycle it. Nevertheless, plastic plays a vital role in the healthcare industry.
"We have witnessed immense growth within the orthopedic manufacturing industry during our family's 100-year history in northern Indiana," Cary Lewis, owner and CEO of Lewis Salvage, said. "And we've seen that manufacturers are increasingly looking for ways to make the entire lifecycle of their products more sustainable and recycling processes more efficient. That's why we're so excited about our collaboration with Brightmark. We will be able to turn more types of plastic into circular products and beneficially reuse difficult to recycle materials."
"Plastic is crucial for patient safety, but the sheer volume of single-use medical waste is a growing environmental concern," says Peylina Chu, executive director of the Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council. "The amount of healthcare plastic produced annually is projected to increase to 48 billion pounds by 2025. It's imperative that we find sustainable solutions to manage and recycle this valuable resource."
Brightmark's circularity centers complement the existing mechanical recycling system, providing a circular solution that benefits communities with recycling infrastructure challenges, the release states.
Brightmark announced a plan to invest $950 million in a new plastics circularity center in Thomaston, Ga.. The investment is expected to create nearly 200 advanced manufacturing jobs, enhance the regional recycling infrastructure and stimulate economic growth and development in rural west central Georgia.