Closed Loop Partners, American Beverage provide funding for Midwest recycling program

According to a news release from New York-based Closed Loop, the $5 million loan will support equipment upgrades at the county’s materials recovery facility. WCSC will use the funding to purchase three optical sorters to increase and improve the facility’s sorting capacity. An additional $600,000 grant from Every Bottle Back will assist in these investments.

The Closed Loop Infrastructure Group provided financing to Scott County in 2015 and 2018 to support infrastructure improvements and purchase recycling carts now in use by the county’s residents.

“Investing in modernizing recycling infrastructure is critical to ensuring that valuable materials are pulled back into supply chains at the end of life and never go to waste,” says Jennifer Louie, managing director at Closed Loop Partners. “Scott County has made significant progress over the years to advance resilient recycling systems. We are proud to continue our support of their work, grow material recovery capabilities and strengthen local circular economy infrastructure.”

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The new loan will help grow the processing of valuable recyclable materials throughout the region. When installed, the equipment upgrades will provide more than 1,600 tons of additional capacity and the capture of 900,000 pounds of extra material annually. 

According to a news release from the American Beverage Association, the project is expected to yield 52 million pounds of recyclable materials over 10 years. This amounts to nearly one million pounds of aluminum and more than five million pounds of polyethylene terephthalate. These upgrades will help decrease contamination and improve the quality and efficiency of sorting to boost the number of recyclable materials that can be remade. It will also increase revenues generated from the sale of recyclables like plastic bottles that reprocessors turn into material for new products.

“Scott County is the third-largest county in Iowa and WCSC’s service area reaches 75,000 households,” says Kathy Morris, director of the Waste Commission of Scott County. “The new equipment helps us increase our tonnage and diversion rates so that we’re diverting more waste from the landfill and into efficient recycling systems.”