Recycling Revitalizers

The companies on this list are mobilizing the creative tools of capitalism to help solve social problems.

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<strong>Digimarc, Dow, and Eastman</strong><br />
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Of the roughly 400 million tons of plastic produced each year, only about 9% gets recycled. The remainder accumulates in our landfills, our oceans—and, increasingly, our bodies. Scientists and activists are racing to build a “circular plastics economy” where most plastic gets reused repeatedly or even perpetually. These companies are in the thick of the effort. Digimarc, which specializes in anti-counterfeiting “watermarks” for currencies, driver’s licenses, and other products, recently launched Digimarc Recycle. That program pairs digital watermarking with software that enables sorting machines to quickly identify what type of plastic any given item is made of—avoiding the mismatches that lead recyclers to reject tons of plastic every year. Plastic also can’t be recycled when it’s too dirty, which inspired Dow, a major plastic producer, to develop the cleaning formula Evowash: Dow estimates Evowash, which became commercially available in March 2023, will help recyclers divert 150,000 tons of waste out of landfills in that year alone. Another plastic producer, Eastman, aims to regenerate materials that today are mostly unrecyclable, including polyester fabric, carpet fibers, and colored plastics. Eastman’s process breaks those materials down to their molecular components, from which it can make highly durable, reusable products. It has recycled about 50 million pounds of plastic since 2020 and plans to scale up to 500 million pounds a year by 2030.

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