Hebert’s Recycling Inc. in Mt. Pearl has opened a new plant, upon being awarded a contract with the Multi-Materials Stewardship Board (MMSB) to purchase all of its plastics. MMSB is a crown agency created in the mid-90s, “to support and promote sustainable waste management.”

Hebert’s new facility has essentially changed the way plastic containers are collected, baled, and processed in Newfoundland and Labrador. This will allow them to process 78 million plastic containers a year, and sell them to global companies which specialize in manufacturing rigid and flexible packaging for pharmaceutical, medical device, food, and beverage markets.

Kevin Sargent, CEO of Hebert’s Recycling Inc., says the company is proud to be investing in the province, furthering its sustainability goals, and to have created 6 new jobs Newfoundland and Labrador.

The new plant makes a sellable product of our used, dirty plastic waste via a system of conveyors, electro-magnetic technology, granulators, air powered elutriation systems, and various line sorters, that remove impurities and contamination and then grinds it into “flake.”

By achieving 99.1% purity, Hebert’s can attract better prices in post-consumer commodities markets. They’ll have no shortage of waste plastic to profit from: the province reports that over the past 20 years, more than 2.6 billion beverage containers have been recycled in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Last year alone, the MMSB’s Beverage Container Recycling program kept 180 million containers out of landfills.

Andrew Parsons, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Environment, as well as Minister Responsible for the Multi-Materials Stewardship Board, says “The new plant increases the economic value added to MMSB’s Beverage Recycling Program, contributes to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and creates new green jobs.”