Dive Brief:
- Re:Circle Solutions, a privately held recycling business, in June revamped operations at its Ontario, California, facility focused on organics. The business is an overhaul of assets acquired from PreZero US, a recycler that was owned by The Schwarz Group, a German retail company that also owns the Lidl chain.
- The business includes a 100-ton-per-day depackaging facility that can process organic waste into animal feed. Other outputs are sent to anaerobic digestion, with landfills used as a destination of last resort.
- Re:Circle also launched TraceOS, its system allowing clients to track the circularity of materials they send to the company. Clemens Stockreiter, founder of the company, said the business offers auditable solutions for clients needing to meet California’s SB 1383 diversion requirements.
Dive Insight:
The appetite for organic waste processing is growing as more companies look to achieve economies of scale. That's especially true in California, where businesses and municipalities continue to face deadlines to successfully divert their organics from disposal or procure products made from those organics, like compost or animal feed.
Stockreiter was formerly CEO of PreZero US, a recycler that primarily handled plastic waste. The Schwarz Group has wound down its operations in the country, selling certain mechanical recycling assets to LyondellBassell last year. Re:Circle Solutions also operates Oroville Flexible Packaging, another facility spun out from PreZero assets.
Stockreiter acquired the organics recycling assets from PreZero US in December. He said the company’s Ontario facility has operated for roughly 15 years, and continued to operate during the transition in ownership.
Re:Circle's Ontario facility can handle 100 tons per day of pre-consumer food waste, most of which comes from grocers, retailers and food processors. The company has a small fleet of vehicles that can haul waste, though it also accepts waste from other haulers.
The facility can currently produce two kinds of feed blends for cows or swine, as well as a blend of organics suitable for anaerobic digestion. The company is also developing several other proprietary organic outputs, including a liquid blend.
Re:Circle employs nutrition scientists on site who review inbound shipments and determine the best mixes of materials for feed products, Stockreiter said. The facility sees a high degree of variability in the shipments it receives based on seasonal differences in produce available at grocery stores and across supply chains.
"It's much more a nutrition facility," Stockreiter said. "It's changing the spirit to repurpose pre-consumer food waste to the highest possible value."
The company's TraceOS system, meanwhile, tracks inbound and outbound weight and the total emissions avoided for each shipment the Ontario facility receives.
Stockreiter said he hopes to repeat the system in other municipalities, saying he designed the Ontario facility with scalability in mind. The company already has a second depackaging line on hand, but not currently in operation, that it can start up once it has contracts in place for another facility.
"If you have a complete business model in hand. ... It’s copy and pasting," Stockreiter said.
