As leaders from 170 UN member states gather for the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) in Nairobi, Kenya to address the gnawing problem of plastic pollution, leaders are making efforts to push environmental initiatives. The State of New Jersey, for instance, issued $16.2 million in grants to support waste reduction and recycling programs in the state.

Canada has also supported the legally binding agreement at the ongoing UNEA meeting, while the US Department of State published several actions to address plastic waste in the country. The push towards solid waste management, recycling and repurposing is pushing the growth of the waste management sector, which is expected to be worth $229.3 billion in 2027.

Northstar Clean Technologies Inc., a clean technology company focused on the sustainable recovery and reprocessing of asphalt shingles, has developed a proprietary design process for taking discarded asphalt shingles and extracting the liquid asphalt, aggregate and fiber for usage in new hot mix asphalt, construction products and other industrial applications.

Northstar announced positive testing results from an independent third-party testing facility for its liquid asphalt and aggregate outputs, confirming that these products meet the Company's end product specification objectives. After initiating steady state production in February at its fully constructed asphalt shingle reprocessing facility in Delta, British Columbia, Northstar used its technology to reprocess single-use asphalt shingles to produce liquid asphalt and aggregate.

"We have always believed that the outputs created through our proprietary bitumen extraction and separation technology ("BEST") design process were of high quality and now we have the independent test results to support this. Through commissioning and steady-state production, we are now fully extracting liquid asphalt from asphalt shingles as designed and producing high-quality end products, as expected," says Aidan Mills, president & CEO and Director of Northstar. "We believe this testing confirms that our two primary products will be able to re-enter the manufacturing process for asphalt shingles, creating a circular economy, and used in the hot-mix asphalt manufacturing process for road paving."

After receiving the positive results, Northstar is moving forward with its expansion plans to scale up its proprietary technology. The company announced that its Board of Directors has approved the City of Calgary as the location for its expanded-capacity asphalt shingle reprocessing scale up facility.

The Calgary Empower Facility will be Northstar's first modular scale up facility with an estimated capacity of 150-200 tons per day (tpd), roughly two to three times higher than the full commercial production capacity of 50-75 tpd at its existing reprocessing pilot facility in Delta, BC.

The scale up facility's build and design are part of Northstar Clean Technologies' planned expansion strategy, with the goal of operating asphalt shingle reprocessing facilities across Canada and the US. The company's independent front-end engineering design or "FEED" for the scale up facility is expected to be completed by the end of Q1 2022.

Upon securing financing and receiving permits, Northstar plans to begin construction on the Calgary Empower Facility in the second half of 2022 with targeted operations by the end of the first half of 2023.

Republic Services, Inc. announced development plans for the first integrated plastics recycling facility in the US. The recycling facility will address the growing demand by consumer brands and packaging manufacturers for recycled products. Republic Services, Inc. says its stepping in with a first-of-its-kind plastics recycling facility to collect plastics for recycling, produce and deliver high-quality recycled plastics for consumer packing.

The company also intends to spend an incremental $550 million on high return projects. Some of these projects include increasing the renewable energy generated from its landfill network, automating recycling processes, and expanding its leadership in recycling in North America. The company also plans to increase Renewable Natural Gas plants.