Waste conversion

Agilyx changes course

Plummeting crude oil prices have led Agilyx, Tigard, Oregon, to reconsider its business model. The company was founded in 2004 with the goal of converting difficult-to-recycle plastic scrap into synthetic crude oil using patented technology. However, with the current low pricing for crude oil, Agilyx has decided to reconsider its mission.

As reported in The Oregonian, the company says it has started shutting down its plastics-to-fuel production process after having produced nearly 800,000 gallons of oil.

The company says it plans to retool its machinery to begin producing styrene, which can be used to produce polystyrene packaging material. To produce styrene, Agilyx will need to begin with polystyrene plastic scrap, such as packaging trays for meat and other expanded polystyrene (EPS) packaging.

Chief Executive Officer Ross Patten tells The Oregonian that the company has customers to purchase the styrene it will produce later this year.

Fiberight gaining support for Maine project

The town council of Bar Harbor, Maine, has voted to back a regional plan that would result in the construction of a waste-to-biofuels anaerobic digestion plant to be operated by Fiberight LLC, Catonsville, Maryland.

According to an online report by the Mount Desert Islander, the 7-0 Bar Harbor town council vote backs the construction of the plant in nearby Hampden, Maine, with Bar Harbor becoming the second city to sign a 15-year agreement to divert trash to the facility if it is built.

“We are steadily gaining support, and anticipate having sufficient tonnage committed by the end of March [2016] to satisfy financing requirements,” Craig Stuart-Paul, CEO of Fiberight LLC, told Renewable Energy from Waste magazine in late February.

Stuart-Paul says recycling is a large part of the planned operation, “including a ‘second pass’ through incoming solid waste for any recyclable material not diverted at the source,” according to the Islander article.

In order for the facility to be operational in early 2018 as planned, the project’s backers say they must receive commitments totaling 150,000 tons of municipal solid waste by June 2016.