Marcus Hook Borough held a ribbon-cutting recently for its new recycling center with Braskem America, promoting enhanced sustainability initiatives and STEM education for the community.
The event was hosted by Marcus Hook Mayor Gene Taylor and borough Manager Gregory Grillone, along with members of the Marcus Hook Borough Council. Also attending were Braskem’s plant manager Stephanie Whitesell and sustainability manager Brittany Darras, as well as other team members who donated funds to make the project possible.
Helping cut the ribbon for the recycling center alongside Braskem’s Whitesell was the famous Philadelphia Eagles Mascot, Swoop.
Braskem is currently the largest polyolefins producer in the Americas, as well as a market leader and pioneer producer of biopolymers on an industrial scale. Braskem’s participation in the recycling center initiative is in-line with the company’s commitment to building a circular economy for plastics as well as its goals related to the elimination of plastic waste, officials said. Since 2010, Braskem has maintained a presence in Marcus Hook with a polypropylene manufacturing facility employing more than 130 workers.
With Swoop are Braskem employees (from left) Stephanie Whitesell, Michael Angelico, Chris Bland, Bob Dunham, Jennifer Anthony, Christina Pursh, Brittany Darras, Jeff Hirt
In this initiative with Marcus Hook, Braskem has stated targets for growing the company’s recycled content product portfolio to sales of 300,000 tons by 2025 and 1 million tons by 2030. The recycling center will help Braskem’s macro goals of finding more advanced and mechanical recycling solutions for a circular economy.
“As a long-standing member of the borough of Marcus Hook, Braskem is strongly committed to investing in our Marcus Hook PP production facility and the surrounding community,” Whitesell said. “We are honored to play a role in bringing neighborhood recycling to the residents of Marcus Hook and contributing to advancing a carbon-neutral circular economy.
“Our thanks go to the Marcus Hook mayor and the borough council for their leadership in bringing this new recycling initiative to reality and for their public-private collaboration with Braskem America.”
The newly launched facility will serve some 2,400 Marcus Hook residents where curbside recycling is not currently available. It also offers a solution for the community to have access to recycling capabilities for paper, aluminum, glass, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), and polypropylene (PP) plastics.
The new recycling drop-off center gives members of the Marcus Hook community direct access to recycling, helping eliminate waste otherwise destined for landfills and other traditional waste processing streams. The site will be monitored by video camera to help ensure public safety and has space designated for future expansion based on additional potential community recycling needs.
“I’d like to thank Braskem for being a great partner with the Borough of Marcus Hook and their generosity. We’re excited to provide this recycling drop-off center to our residents to help foster a circular economy,” Taylor said.
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