The Illinois Counties Solid Waste Management Association (ILCSWMA) was established in 1993 as a not-for-profit organization for local level solid waste management officials and other interested parties. The Association is dedicated to providing a forum for networking, training and information exchange. | | |
It’s almost summertime! I hope everyone gets some time to enjoy it. Your ILCSWMA Board and staff are excited to announce that registration for the Illinois Circularity Conference is now open. Please register and book your room as soon as possible.
Last week was the Central Region Meeting. Attendees were introduced to Nolin Moon, the new Manager of the Bureau of Land's Field Operations Section. Illinois EPA Deputy Bureau Chief Jacki Cooperider and program managers Ethan Herrick and Alyssa Hermon accompanied him and provided an update on several bureau priorities. We are grateful to them for taking the time to visit with our central region members.
This month, we feature one of our Affiliate Members, COM2 Recycling. As one of only a few remaining electronic recyclers operating a processing facility in Illinois, COM2 is at the forefront of innovative approaches to managing the next generation of electronic devices.
We are also celebrating McHenry County’s own Kimberly Hankin for receiving the Northwest Herald’s Women of Distinction Award.
Finally, as we conclude our annual membership drive, I am pleased to report that the state of the ILCSWMA Membership continues to grow. Today, we are comprised of 28 full members, 24 affiliate members, and five partner and honorary members. I am thankful for your support. Now let’s get summer going.
Cheers,
Pete
| | Updated List of 2025 Members! | | Thank you to the following Counties, Businesses, and Organizations for becoming a 2025 Member of ILCSWMA. Your dues suport our administrative coordinator, and provide programming, education, and statewide communication about topics that impact our work as solid waste, recycling, and composting professionsals. As a reminder, an Association membership runs from January to December. | |
- Ambraw Valley Solid Waste Agency
- Christian County
- City of Urbana
- Coles County
- Cook County
- DeKalb County
- DuPage County
- Ecology Action Center (McLean)
- Grundy County
- Henderson County
- Jackson County
- Jo Davies Carrol Solid Waste Agency
- Kane County
- Lake County
- LaSalle County
- Macon County
- Madison County
- McHenry County
- Ogle County
- Perry County
- Rock Island Waste Management Agency
- St. Clair County
- Solid Waste Agency of Lake County
- Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County
- Tazwell County
- Vermillion County
- Village of Oak Park
- Will County
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- ARXG
- Call2recycle
- Champaign County Environmental Stewards
- Com2 Recycling
- Dynamic Lifecycle Innovations
- ERRO
- Geo-Logic & Associates
- Groot
- Flood Brothers Disposal
- Elgin Recycling
- g2 revolution
- Heritage Environmental Services
- Independent Recycling Services
- LRS
- Midwest-Fiber
- PaintCare
- Perry Ridge Landfill
- Recycle Coach
- Reynolds Consumer Products
- Rumpke Waste and Recycling
- SCS Engineers
- University of IL at Chicago
- URT Solutions
- WasteNot Compost
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- Chad Braatz
- Bart Hagston
- Pat Dieckhoff, Retiree
| | Not a 2025 member yet? Click on the button below to become a member! If you have any questions about membership, please visit ilcswma.org/join or send an email to info@ilcswma.org. | | | |
ILCSWMA Members Only FaceBook Group
Do you have any information to share with other ILCSWMA members? Have questions you want others' input?
Join the new ILCSWMA Members Only Facebook Group!
This group allows for conversations to be had, questions to be answered, and resources to be shared. This group is open to all current ILCSWMA members who are in good standing, so make sure to get your membership renewed. This group is moderated by ILCSWMA board members to ensure that all information shared is accurate and well managed.
Go on ILCSWMA Members Only to join this private group today!
Please reach out to Katie Vogler at kvogler@ecologyactioncenter.org if you have questions about how to join the Facebook Group.
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Central Regional Meeting Recap
Submitted by Melissa Goetze
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On May 29th the Central Region of the Illinois Counties’ Solid Waste Management Association held a meeting to help members stay informed about the latest programs and updates with featured speakers and we had such an amazing response for registration that we had to change the location of the meeting to the Bloomington Public Library to accommodate everyone! Melissa Goetze, Central Regional Representative, kicked off the meeting with an introduction and a welcome to all that attended.
Pete Adrian discussed the importance of these meetings and becoming a member of ILCSWMA to provide valuable resources and networking opportunities such as these meetings. He explained that ILCSWMA has some space on their new website to post resource documents such as toolkit and other related files and links. We will be posting documents on our website shared from the meeting. Do you have valuable resources, articles, or information that could benefit the ILCSWMA community? We encourage you to share your knowledge! Contribute to our resource library! ILCSWMA Resources | Tools for Waste Management Success.
During the meeting Sharon Chung, State Representative for Illinois's 91st House District and Walter Willis, Executive Director, Solid Waste Agency of Lake County were able to join us through Teams to discuss proposed HHW legislation and answer other questions pertaining to current proposed bills.
Also joining us through Teams were Stephanie Katsaros, Bright Beat and Clair Ryan from Kane County for updates on the Large Event Facility Act.
In person, we had several representatives from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. We were introduced to the new Manager, Bureau of Land – Field Operations Section; Nolin Moon. He has joined Illinois EPA after serving over 15 years in Florida and is looking forward to working with everyone. Jacki Cooperider, Deputy Bureau Chief of Division of Land Pollution Control addressed the current state of Illinois Bills; the current status of our EPR programs along with Ethan Herrick for batteries and Paint Stewardship and Alyssa Hermon regarding Residential Sharps Collection Program Notice of Funding Opportunity.
Kevin Callarman, Illinois Program Coordinator from PaintCare, was also available for information on the status of the program and answered questions from the attendees. Liz Kunkle, Customer Success Manager for Recycle Coach, presented onboarding for the recycle coach program, discussing several Illinois Counties that are currently in the process. Melissa Goetze, Director of Environmental Health and Amanda Hunt, Environmental Health Educator both from the Tazewell County Health Department provided a quick story of onboarding their Municipalities with Recycle Coach.
Megan Hanley, MPH, CIC Epidemiologist Tazewell County Health Department who presented at the last Central Regional ILCSWMA meeting joined us again this year for an update on how successful and how far Tazewell County’s Residential Sharps Program has been and provided an update on where they are going for the future now that they have established Kiosks drop off sites. For more information: Residential Sharps Disposal | Tazewell County, IL.
We enjoyed networking so much during this meeting that we worked right through the schedule lunch that was provided for by ILCSWMA!
For more information on ILCSWMA’s ongoing networking, partnerships and educational opportunities, check out our new website! ILCSWMA | Advancing Solid Waste Management in Illinois.
| | Nolin Moon, IL Environmental Protection Agency | | Stephanie Katsaros, Bright Beat | | Megan Hanley, Tazewell County Health Department | | |
The 2025 Illinois Circularity Conference is set for October 14-15, 2025, at the Embassy Suites by Hilton in East Peoria, Illinois. This highly anticipated event brings together three leading organizations in waste management and recycling:
- Illinois Counties Solid Waste Management Association
- Illinois Recycling Foundation
- Illinois Solid Waste Association of North America, Land of Lincoln Chapter
The Embassy Suites offers a prime location for networking, education, and collaboration, with comfortable accommodations and modern conference facilities. Rates are $110 per night. Book your room now.
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Conference Attendee Rates
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Full Conference, Member of IRF, ILCSWMA, SWANA - $ 350.00
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Full Conference Non-Member - $ 450.00
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Tuesday Only - $ 250.00
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Wednesday Only - $ 250.00
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Speaker – for day NOT speaking - $ 150.00
| | | | Preliminary Overview of Session Topics | | Elevate Your Brand as a Sponsor | | |
Seize this exceptional opportunity to boost your organization's profile at the 2025 Illinois Circularity Conference. Our sponsorship packages are designed to deliver maximum exposure, exclusive networking opportunities, and a lasting impact on a highly engaged audience. Secure your spot today and stand out as a leader in innovation and sustainability.
Don't miss this chance to partner with us and drive real value for your organization!
A BIG thank you to our early sponsors:
Title Sponsor:
Gold Sponsors:
- ARXG
- Midwest-Fiber
- PaintCare
- Sibelco/SMI
Silver Sponsors:
- Fortune Metal Midwest
- Pratt Recycling, Inc.
- Taz Recycling
Bronze Sponsors:
- Ogle County
- Solid Waste Agency of Lake County
- Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County
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Resource Recycling
E-scrap sector continues solar processing push
Published: May 22, 2025
by Colin Staub
| | | | Size-reduced solar panels at Com2 Recycling Solutions’ Illinois facility. The company is using the glass to offset declining CRT volumes. | Photo courtesy Com2 | | | |
Electronics processors are increasingly adding solar panel recycling capacity, in some cases processing the panels similarly to declining streams like CRT glass and in other cases rolling out entirely new technologies, companies said in recent interviews.
E-Scrap News several years ago profiled how a handful of processors are handling solar panels and recently checked in with new entrants to the market and emerging technology developers.
As panel processing has grown in the e-scrap field, the R2 certification standard recently rolled out a photovoltaic panel-specific processing certification appendix, and two processors have achieved that certification.
Using solar glass to replace declining CRT volumes
The first company to achieve R2’s new certification solar annex was Carol Stream, Illinois-headquartered Com2 Recycling Solutions.
Com2 has been processing CRT glass since 2009, using the crushed leaded glass to create frit material, a ceramic powder that is used in tile manufacturing. The company is still shipping its frit every month, but Com2 is processing roughly 60% less CRT material than it did just two years ago, said Saheem Baloch, vice president of Com2.
Meanwhile, “we have the buyers who want to continue this frit,” he said. So Com2 entered the solar panel recycling game in 2023 based on its ceramic customer base and increasing inquiries from suppliers, Baloch said.
“We tested glass from the solar, and it turned out to be a good match for our frit,” Baloch said. Solar panel recycling is “really pretty easy” when compared to CRT glass processing, Baloch said: There’s no lead in the panels, for instance, and the hardest part is separating the wafer material from the glass.
Com2 sources panels from solar installation contractors, from other recycling companies who don’t process the panels and from manufacturers. Very occasionally, they come in from residential drop-off.
Like every company E-Scrap News spoke with, Com2 is charging an upfront fee to process the panels due to the low value of extracted materials.
“The recovered value is not enough to cover the cost,” Baloch said.
When the panels arrive, Com2 first separates the aluminum casing from the glass panel. The aluminum can be sold for scrap. The panel then goes to an initial crusher line, where it is reduced into smaller pieces, then into a glass pulverizer. The pulverizer produces a fine stream of glass, silica, copper and other metals.
| | Com2 pulverizes the solar panel glass into a fine powder that goes into its ceramic frit product. | Photo courtesy Com2 | | | |
The crushed glass goes to the company’s frit line, where it’s mixed with CRT glass to create the frit output. The solar glass fits well into the frit mix, but the volume is too low to create a solar glass-specific frit at this point, Baloch noted. The company is processing between 8,000 to 9,000 panels each month, he said, and in an average solar panel, the company might recover 13 or 14 pounds of glass.
“We have to mix with some glass, either the CRT glass or other bottle glass, to make the volume” to send to the ceramic buyers, he said.
Read entire article HERE
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E-SCRAP NEWS
Citing Basel, Illinois processor launches e-plastics line
Published: April 3, 2025
by Colin Staub
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North American e-scrap processor Com2 began processing e-plastics in-house at the beginning of the year after global regulations on material movement challenged longstanding export pathways.
Com2 Recycling Solutions, which operates a facility in the Chicago area and another in Mississauga, Ontario, is a longtime processor well-known for processing CRT glass into a feedstock for tile frit, an ingredient in compounding enamels and ceramic glazes. In recent months, the company’s U.S. facility has invested about $1.4 million to install new equipment to process a range of plastics commonly found in electronics.
“We generate a lot of plastic, because of CRT processing and flat-panel processing,” said Saheem Baloch, CEO of Com2, in an interview with E-Scrap News. Com2 generates 600,000 to 900,000 pounds of e-plastics per month, Baloch estimated, or about 7 million to 11 million pounds per year. Most of the plastic the company generates is ABS and polycarbonate, commonly used in TVs and flat-panel displays as well as printers and keyboards.
In the past, “it was easy to sell the plastic, because a lot of buyers were buying and selling to Malaysia,” Baloch said.
But the e-plastics landscape has shifted substantially in recent years, driven by changes to the Basel Convention, the global treaty regulating shipments of end-of-life materials. A plastics-focused amendment that took effect in 2021 changed the requirements for many countries, including common U.S. export markets, to import scrap plastics. And beginning in January of this year, an e-scrap-focused amendment added new requirements for shipping end-of-life electronics around the globe.
The 2021 plastic amendment did not cause an immediate end to e-plastic exports – by late 2023, industry watchdog the Basel Action Network issued a warning that numerous domestic processors were still exporting plastics in violation of the Basel Convention, which the U.S. isn’t a party to but which the e-Stewards and R2 e-scrap certification standards expect certified companies to adhere to.
The major obstacle to compliance has been lagging domestic e-plastics processing capacity. Some companies have taken advantage of the emerging business opportunity, and Com2 is among the recent entrants in this space. Com2 knew the Basel regulations were increasing scrutiny on mixed-material exports, Baloch said, and the company knew one solution was to increase its in-house sortation abilities to both move materials and maintain its R2 compliance.
The company this year started up a full shredding line capable of processing 2 million pounds per month, or 24 million pounds per year. Baloch explained the line takes the plastics through two shredders and a series of hammer mills, granulators, magnets, washing tanks, dryers and sorting tanks. At the back end, the material comes out in ABS or PC regrind fractions. Baloch said the company has tested the ABS stream and found it to achieve 98% polymer purity.
Com2 is also planning to install additional sortation equipment, including electrostatic separation equipment to separate any PS out of the ABS stream and equipment to provide greater sortation by color. But even without full color sortation, shredded regrind consisting almost exclusively of one polymer is enough to get the plastic out of the scope of Basel control, according to R2.
The company isn’t pelletizing the e-plastics in-house, but it’s evaluating whether the market exists to add pellet production capacity.
“At this moment, our customers are asking for regrind,” Baloch said, particularly because the customers are typically compounders who will mix the regrind with other feedstock, such as virgin plastic, to meet certain criteria before pelletizing.
Most of those customers are North American buyers, he said.
Com2’s Canada facility now sends its e-plastics to the Illinois facility for processing. Other e-scrap processors are doing the same, because the company’s processing capacity is more than double its typical in-house generation.
He added that the company is bringing in full plastic-heavy devices from other processors as well as plastic components that have already been removed from devices. Com2 prefers to receive whole devices rather than shredded fractions because it’s easier to separate components from the whole device in preparation for e-plastics processing, rather than isolating plastics from a shred mixture that includes lots of other contaminants, but the company does accept both.
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A Woman of Distinction
Award recipient Kimberly Hankins speaks during the Northwest Herald’s Women of Distinction award luncheon June 5, 2024, at Boulder Ridge Country Club, in Lake in the Hills. The luncheon recognized 11 women in the community as Women of Distinction.
Photo credit | Gregory Shaver
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Kimberly Hankins is honored for being a sustainability visionary, by the Northwest Hearld
By MELISSA RUBALCABA RISKE- tips@nwherald.com
In her role in McHenry County College‘s first full-time sustainability position, Kim Hankins is tasked with development and sharing sustainability initiatives on campus, in the classroom and in the community.
And in her home life, whether she’s buying a new washing machine or a new hair brush, she’s paying attention to materials, designs and ensuring her dollars are supporting her philosophy on sustainability, not allowing herself to be “green-washed” or duped into a product that appears environmentally sound only to realize its masked false claims.
“She leads by example, always looking for alternatives, new technologies and green practices to share with students, staff, faculty and the community,” Anne Basten, a friend and fellow member of the Environmental Defenders of McHenry County, wrote in her nomination of Hankins as a Woman of Distinction.
Hankins is the among 11 honorees of the 2024 Women of Distinction Awards, recognized by the Northwest Herald. The honor highlights women in McHenry County, nominated by their peers, friends and loved ones, who provide leadership in their fields of expertise, serve as role models and mentors, advocate positive social change or give back to their community through time, talent and resources.
Hankins said it was a high school science teacher who showed her what it meant to care for the environment and encouraged her studies. She earned an undergraduate degree in environmental
policy, master’s in environmental science and a doctorate in sustainability. Her dissertation was on “Sustainability in Community Colleges: It’s More than Just Recycling.”
When she and her husband moved to the area 21 years ago, she sought out some local volunteer opportunities and found her way to the Environmental Defenders of McHenry County as well as the McHenry County Conservation District. Hankins said these groups shared her passion and energy for having a positive impact. She served as a trustee for the Conservation District from 2004 to 2009, and this spring she is completing her term as president of the board of the Environmental Defenders.
Hankins credits the work with these groups that led to her current role at McHenry County College, where she is manager of The Sustainability Center, leading the charge in the college’s commitment to a green campus, green curriculum and green community.
At MCC, she’s tackled a number of initiatives, from the solar panels at a former college building, the Shah Center, to a wide number of recycling opportunities for items including batteries, paper and even those coffee pods. She coordinates the Green Living Expo which is slated for Nov. 1 this year.
“The Expo is a wonderful event for the campus and community to experience sustainability related business and organizations,”
Hankins said.
She also directs the development of the annual Green Guide Recycling Directory, which has served as a great community resource for the last 19 years. This often leads to speaking engagements around the county on recycling.
“It’s fun to talk about what you’re passionate about,” Hankins said.
Additionally, Hankins supports faculty with sustainability-related presentations and assignments. She is an adviser to the campus’ environmental club, an opportunity that not only give her a chance to inspire students, but she finds their fresh perspectives and ideas offering an exciting look into the future of promoting sustainability as students promote waste reduction, renewable energy and discuss the impact of fast fashion.
| | Your ILCSWMA Board Members | | |
Here are the Board Members for 2024:
- Pete Adrian, President
- Kerri Gale, Vice President
- Lisa Wooddy, Secretary
- Becky Tracy. Treasurer
- Paul Cooney, Northern Region Rep
- Melissa Goetze, Central Region Rep
- Aaron Kelley, Southern Region Rep
- Jana Messmore, At Large Rep
- Katie Vogler, At Large Rep
- Mary S. Allen, Administrative Coordinator
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STAY CONNECTED
Please send in information to share with the membership about a new program, data from a collection event, or anything pertaining to successful waste prevention initiatives or enforcement. If you are a full member and have others in your department that would like to receive this newsletter, please send an email request to ILCSWMA's administrative coordinator, Mary S. Allen, at info@ilcswma.org.
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