Discounted Room Deadline is TOMORROW - 3/1/22!

With only a few weeks to go until the conference, make sure you get your registration in for our 32nd Annual Conference and Trade Show at the Hilton Kingston Plantation in Myrtle Beach, SC. Check out the awesome conference we have planned at www.cra-recycle.org/2022conf and get your registration in ASAP! The hotel blocks are filling up - the deadline to book your discounted room is March 1, 2022!

Sponsor Info

Exhibitor Info

Attendee Info

Hotel Info

If you have any questions or need assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out to at staff@cra-recycle.org or calling the office at 877.972.0007.

Representatives, Sponsors, and Nurdles, Oh My!

2022 SC Recycling Day was Success!

Recycling day at the legislature was a hit this year! With 51 recycling professionals and 22 South Carolina Representatives we couldn't have asked for a better turn out. The Palmetto Club provided a wonderful space that allowed for positive communication of important information about the recycling industry's impact in South Carolina.

Representative Hiott, Chairman, House Agriculture, Natural Resources & Environmental Affairs Committee, provided key information in his time talking to all of the recycling professionals present, driving the fact that the key to change in this industry relies on all of us to continue pushing the ideas to our representatives that we believe need to be addressed. Rep Hiott also informed the room of the havoc that "Nurdles" have caused to the South Carolina coast, which was the key for the Nurdle Bill being passed this past April.

New to nurdles? Find out more at ABC

Chapel Hill Chemists are Creating a Better Plastic

Carolina Chemists are Upcycling Plastic Trash into Stronger Materials

Chemists at UNC Chapel Hill are rewriting the narrative when it comes to plastic waste. Realizing that the average recycling rate in America is only brushing 9%, the tables are now being turned by breaking down plastics to create a new material that is stronger and tougher. This breakthrough could mean the new material will be much more valuable than in its original form.

“Our approach views plastic waste as a potentially valuable resource for the production of new molecules and materials,” said Frank Leibfarth, assistant professor of chemistry in the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. “We hope this method could drive an economic incentive to recycle plastic, literally turning trash into treasure.”

By modifying the carbon-hydrogen bonds that are common in polymers, the building blocks for modern plastic used in grocery bags, soda and water bottles, food packaging, auto parts and toys, the life span of polymers could be expanded beyond single-use plastic. With a newly identified reagent that could strip hydrogen atoms off medicinal compounds and polymers, the UNC chemists were able to make new bonds in places previously considered unreactive.

"...if the chemistry can be repeatedly applied to polymers to help recycle them over and over again, “it could change the way we look at plastic,” Leibfarth said.

Read the full release at UNC News

Feletia Lee Awarded Janet B. Royster Scholarship

UNC Wilmington Recycling Coordinator Receives Memorial Scholarship

UNCW Recycling Coordinator and CRA Member Feletia Lee is among the eight recipients of the UNC System Staff Assembly’s Janet B. Royster Memorial Scholarship. The highly competitive scholarship provides full-time, non-faculty employees of the UNC System assistance towards earning a degree or other professional certification. Recipients are chosen by a selection committee.

“As the recycling coordinator, it's been my goal to shift away from the perspective of waste as just trash. We should look as waste as a resource,” said Lee. “We should manage our waste as a resource that has value and worth, and take responsibility for the waste we generate and manage it proactively. I hope that through the tools I learn in this program, I can help further the efforts of UNCW to become zero-waste.”

Congratulations, Feletia!

Read more about the scholarship at UNCW

SC 6th-Grader Wins Recycling Art Contest!

Loris Student Tackles Environmental Awareness

Loris Middle School students are turning trash into treasure with the Horry County Solid Waste Authority’s annual POP (Protect Our Planet) Art Recycling Contest. This was the 18th year for the contest, which aims to promote environmental awareness and highlight the creative talents of students.

6th grader Ryan McQuilla created a remote control car made primarily with bottle caps, entitled “Recycle America”, which was selected as the grand prize winner. The students were required to create a work of art using at least 70% of a specified material chosen by the Solid Waste Authority. This year’s material was bottle caps.

Check out Ryan's invention at WPDE

Crews Tackle High Contamination in Greensboro

Greensboro Waste Reduction Supervisor Tori Carle is on the Case!

High rates of contaminated recycling are plaguing Greensboro in a new way, but Tori Carle says we can fight this together.

“We are finding more good recycling than we thought we might on these routes, so there are quite a few people that are trying really hard. But there are still a ton of issues,” Carle explained. 

The city has one full-time recycling inspector, but he can’t get to almost 90,000 homes in the city alone. Four extra staff members started going out starting this month to tag cans with one of three stickers along high-contamination routes. She urged people to download the GSO Collects app and use the Waste Wizard tool for more information on how to sort out contamination.City employees do take note of contamination throughout the year and send postcards to residents who contaminate. If you receive three postcards and one additional tag, personnel will attempt to remove your recycling bin entirely. 

“Bagged recycling was our number one issue where people were doing a great job recycling, but it was in a plastic bag, and when that goes to the recycling center, they do not open that up. It goes to the garbage", Carle stated, “we’re really, truly trying to make this an education program.”

Listen to Tori Carle's interview at Fox8

Advancing DEI Within the U.S. Recycling System

Recycling Inclusion Fund Aims to Close the Equity Gap

The Recycling Partnership recently marked the official launch of the Recycling Inclusion Fund, which is a unique funding stream to address racial disparities and systemic challenges in the U.S. waste and recycling industries.

According to The Partnership’s 2021 Paying It Forward report on the state of the U.S. recycling system, 4 in 10 single-family residents lack equitable recycling access – equating to more than 40 million people who do not have the same access to recycling as they have to their trash service. That number increases to 7 in 10 for those who live in a multifamily property or rural community. With awareness that Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) have historically been underserved and under-supported in their communities, the Recycling Inclusion Fund aims to provide the resources and tools residents need to live a more sustainable life.

“This work addresses a pressing need within the industry – using our robust data and research, we can transform the system to amplify the power we know exists in communities of color,” explains Jessica Levine, Diversity and Inclusion Manager and founder of the Recycling Inclusion Fund. “This initiative is changing the way we understand, approach and address system inequalities in recycling.”

Learn more from the Recycling Partnership

New Liberty Tire Rubberized Mulch Facility in Sanford

Liberty Tire is Bringing Manufacturing Jobs to North Carolina

Liberty Tire Recycling, the premier North American provider of tire recycling services, will open a new manufacturing facility in Sanford in February 2022, creating 30 new jobs in the area. By recycling more than 190 million tires annually, Liberty Tire reclaims approximately 3 billion pounds of rubber each year. Recycled rubber produced by Liberty Tire is used to create innovative, eco-friendly solutions including landscaping and playground products that are sold at more than 15,000 retail locations across North America.

The new facility will produce rubberized mulch, a resilient and sustainable alternative to traditional mulch, made from recycled scrap tires.

“Liberty is excited to make positive economic and environmental impacts in the region,” said Liberty CEO Thomas Womble. “A new Liberty facility means fewer scrap tires in the waste stream and more jobs for hardworking North Carolinians.”

Read the full article at BusinessWire

How & When to Apply for Federal Funding: March 16

PennRMC & NRC Webinar Will Provide Info and Tips for Getting Funding

This upcoming webinar in Sustainable Materials Management's webinar series on March 16th about Federal Funding is not one to be missed!

It will include Requests for Proposals (RFPs) currently underway at the US Environmental Protection Agency. It will also provide an update on when regulations and RFPs to implement the new Infrastructure funding adopted by Congress will be available. Finally, this webinar will provide tips on how to prepare and apply for federal funding, including clearly articulating grant goals, objectives, outcomes and evaluation plans and early identification of potential collaborative grant partners (e.g. public agencies, private businesses, and nonprofit subcontractors and consultants).

Click here for more information and to register for this event