Plastics, Recycling and the Circular Economy

This episode is sponsored by the Circulen family of sustainable solutions from LyondellBasell. Visit LyondellBasell.com/Circulen to learn more.

The Sustainabilty SmartPod gang is doing something different and bringing you a themed episode. Today we're going to focus on plastics, recycling, and the circular economy. From wind turbines and solar panels to 3D printing and executive education, all of today's segments will touch on at least one of those topics, if not all three. And after the four of us do our usual roundtable discussion, we will also be welcoming in two different guests.

Roman Smith, Director of Global Environmental Sustainability and Social Innovation from AT&T, joins the show (25:07) to talk about an AI-powered recycling tool AT&T has deployed at its headquarters in Dallas. 

Dan Coughlin, Senior Staff and Leader of Industrial Collaborations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will also join the show (31:32) to delve into how the government is working hand in hand with industry and leveraging technologies like 3D printing to create more sustainable manufacturing materials for industries like aviation, wind energy, housing and more.

Show Segments

Sustainable or Suspicious - (1:54)
The recycling/repurposing conundrum surrounding wind turbines and solar panels

Top Headlines from SmartBrief on Sustainability - (8:29)
Smart bin will automatically track food waste
Investors urge CPG firms to speed plastic reduction
Execs seek courses to fill sustainability knowledge gaps

Here and There - (18:30)
How The Philippines is using AI to monitor its plastics trash

Sign up for the SmartBrief on Sustainability newsletter

Transcript

(Note: This transcript was creeated using aritificial intelligence. It has not been edited verbatim.)

Sean McMahon  00:00

Today's episode of the Sustainability SmartPod is brought to you by the Circulen family of sustainable solutions from LyondellBasell. LyondellBasell helps its customers develop more sustainable products, lower their carbon footprint and unlock the circular potential of plastics. Visit LyondellBasell.com/Circulen To learn more, or click on the link in the show notes. 

Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of the Sustainability SmartPod. My name is Sean McMahon and I'm joined by our usual team of sustainability experts Jaan vanValkenburgh, Evan Milberg and Karen Kantor. How's everyone doing today?

Jaan vanValkenburgh  00:49

Very excited about trash today

Evan Milberg  00:51

As am I

Karen Kantor

I'm good.

Sean McMahon  00:55

Yep, as Jaan and Evan just alluded to, we're gonna be doing things a little bit different today. Normally, episodes of this show convention to all kinds of topics about sustainability. But today, we're going to focus on plastics, recycling, and the circular economy. 

All of today's segments will touch on at least one of those topics, if not all three. And after the four of us do our usual roundtable discussion, we will also be welcoming in two different guests. I will have a conversation with Roman Smith from AT&T about a cool recycling tool that AT&T has deployed at its headquarters in Dallas. After that, Evan will interview Dan Coughlin from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dan is the leader of Industrial Collaborations at ORNL and he's going to explain how the government is working hand in hand with industry to create more sustainable manufacturing materials. 

We're gonna be doing these themed shows from time to time, so be sure to let us know what you think. And you can also feel free to get in touch and suggest a topic on which we should focus a future episode. 

Right now let's get things rolling with the first segment of today's show. It's something we call sustainable or suspicious. And today's topic is wind turbines and solar panels. It turns out these staples of the green economy and the energy transition are not that easy to recycle. Whether it's at the end of life, or when there are slight manufacturing defects. Recycling these products is a challenge. I mean, think about it. Wind turbines are big, massive. So they're not that easy to just get rid of. And with solar panels. They're obviously smaller. But the components themselves need to be handled delicately. Now there are smart people at some startups trying to solve this issue. But right now, the recycling process is complex and expensive. So team, what are your thoughts on this?

Evan Milberg  02:41

So this news is something near and dear to my heart, because as I've mentioned before, I used to work for a trade association for composites manufacturers, many of whom make materials for turbine blades. And one of the biggest issues facing that industry is that it's really hard to recycle products with these chemically inflexible polymers. They're known as thermos sets, because they stay in place after they're done curing. And then they have a reinforcing fiber, like fiberglass. So what folks have figured out is that you can take basically all of the liquids tars and oils from those composite materials, and turn them into clean synthetic gases. And then those gases have real market value, particularly for hard to abate industries like cement. But that's not the only potential for recycling here. I've also seen some stories about companies who take end of life blades and turn them into new products like manhole covers or pedestrian bridges. So admittedly, I'm a little biased here. But this is something I think, is really exciting.

Jaan vanValkenburgh  03:44

I liked in particular, in this article, that there were two impacts, you just talked about. Looking back, you have blades that are made with these resins, they need to be sturdy, it's hard to get up there to fix you don't want to have to, right, so they're supposed to last. But there are are ways now to actually break them down. And you mentioned products that they can be made into. I love that idea. But at the same time, I love that. There are other companies competing technologies, competing solutions, that are saying, Okay, that's great for the past, and we definitely need that. But we also need to look forward. We don't want to have to do this always. It might get cheaper as we do it more and more and we advance. But let's make blades that are recyclable. As for solar that's been talked about for quite a while and and I genuinely don't know what the answer is to that. You need to take out the compartments, but again, that's labor intensive, and that takes time.

Karen Kantor  04:54

I hate to be the wet blanket, but I often seem to be the wet blank. I am not disagreeing that it's sustainable. But I don't think it's as clean as somebody might think, just from listening to us, when we're recycling wind turbine blades, what's happening, at least in some cases is paralysis, which basically means they're being burnt. They're being melted. And that means that there is an air pollution side to this. And that's part of what's making it so expensive. The fact that you have to purify the emissions. And when you combine that with the amount of emissions and carbon generated just by moving these things, it becomes less sustainable, although you'd still have to ship them anyway to a landfill. So like I said, I'm not entirely on the suspicious side, but I don't think it's free and clear, sustainability wise.

Evan Milberg  05:53

Karen, I'm really glad you mentioned pyrolysis, because that's actually something that the trade association I used to work for, was trying to find an alternative for, and they conducted studies using a solid pollicis process, which involves using a solvent instead of heat. And that makes it more sustainable.

Sean McMahon  06:12

Yeah. And so covered this a little bit in my line of work. Karen and I are the editors of the renewable energy smartbrief. And we also have a separate podcast all about renewable energy. And so I gotta say, some of the manufacturers of particularly wind turbines, you know, your Vestas, Siemens Gamesa. They're trying to get in front of this, right, because what we're all talking about right now is what to do with, you know, at the end of life, or like I said, when there's defects. They're trying to solve this by using different resins and different substances when they create these blades. They're making a lot of progress. They're particularly Vestas, I know is, but there's probably a little bit of room to run still. And I think one of the reasons I'm somewhat suspicious on this is the repurposing side of it. I think if we can recycle, that's great. Figure out a way to do that. Without the pollution. That's great. But repurposing these things, I just feel like, there's always a great idea. And yeah, you can use it for that one or two use cases. I mean, for me, I always look around, right? I live in Oregon. And you know what it does a lot of in Oregon, it rains, but you'd be surprised how many high schools here and their football slash soccer stadium, whatever, don't have a cover over the stance. A lot of them do, but not all of them. And so then I look at these giant wind turbines, which are, you know, approaching the length of a football field. Like, you know, just hoist that thing up over the over the stands or a couple of them terrorist, and boom, like everyone could stay out of the ring.

Jaan vanValkenburgh  07:35

We need some some charismatic architecture.

Sean McMahon  07:40

There's only so many stadiums, and there are 1000s and 1000s of wind turbines. So that's my that's just to make my point about like use case. Yeah. And a couple of one offs. That's great, but I don't know, it's, I think the science on the recycling, I'll say is sustainable, but other use cases. I'm suspicious. Evan, how about you?

Evan Milberg  08:01

So I think I've admitted my bias upfront. I'm squarely on the sustainable side of this. But clearly take everything I've got to say with a with a grain of salt on this one.

Sean McMahon  08:13

Okay, so you're sustainable. Karen is suspicious. Jaan, where are you on this?

Jaan vanValkenburgh  08:21

I am suspicious, but hopeful, but hopeful. I think that these efforts are worth exploring.

Sean McMahon  08:29

We'll keep our eye on the recyclability of wind turbines and solar panels. But for now, we'll move on to the next segment of our show. This is where Karen, who is the editor of smartbrief on sustainability, which we always hype, you can subscribe to that there's a link in the show notes. Karen shares with us three stories that are popular from that newsletter. Karen, what do you got for us?

Karen Kantor  08:49

Well, at the top of my list this week is a story from the Institution of Engineering and Technology, about smart bins. These smart bins were invented by the scientists of Oregon State University Cascades. 

Sean McMahon  09:05

Go beavers! That's in my backyard.

Karen Kantor  09:09

Yes, go beavers. And this particular bin is a smart compost bin which is used to track household waste. Now it's still in development when it is ready to go. The bin will include a voice to text feature for users to describe what they're putting into it. technology to measure that waste and to capture 3d images. This is important for planners who need to figure out how to deal with food waste. Measuring food waste is difficult, especially if you're talking about household waste. So as project manager Patrick Donnelly says the goal is to inspire future waste reduction by specifically quantifying measuring and tracking the amount of food you simply can't manage what you don't measure.

Sean McMahon  09:59

Well this topic cut dovetails nicely with one of the interviews we're gonna have coming up later in the show. As I mentioned, this episode is all about kind of recycling and the circular economy. And we're gonna be talking to Roman Smith from AT&T. And they are using a fascinating technology in their cafeterias at their HQ to help employees make that decision at the recycling point, right? Because what we're really talking about here, I like to call it the decision points, like everyone gets to that recycling bin, and there's two or three options or gets to that trash bin, or, you know, like we're talking about here. And like, where does it go? Where do I put what I have in my hand, these kinds of tying nicely together?

Jaan vanValkenburgh  10:35

I think it's a great training exercise. I liked in the article that they talked about a chef who did it. Because immediately there I can see how that's a quantity of food and money that could be very quickly gotten back because of greater efficiency for the home. I think you would end up doing it for a while and then stop it. Because it sounds annoying as heck, right? You got to talk to this thing, it talks back it you have to say banana peel, you have to say half eaten yogurt cup. You know, I? I think that that could get very old. I think that in and of itself could get you to stop wasting food.

Karen Kantor  11:23

Yes, there's a shame factor. Definitely if you don't want to help, if you don't have to want to tell your trashcan what you're not eating. Yeah, I could see that as being embarrassing.

Evan Milberg  11:33

Smart. Ben turns into smart shaming. No, I like it. But But yeah, as John was saying, one of the things that Donnelly uses to describe the system is saying that when a user disposes of edible and non edible food waste in the bin, our device prompts the user to describe the deposited items. That's already more steps than I want to take when I'm throwing away my trash. I mean, isn't the selling point of smart technology that it makes lazy people even lazier? And this does the opposite. But but maybe that's what we need.

Sean McMahon  12:10

I like that. Well, I mean people lazier, no, no, but

Evan Milberg  12:13

I mean, it's I mean, it sounds facetious. But think of how every major product gets sold. Now, it's, it's with the idea that you can do less. Now I get, so this is making you do more.

Sean McMahon  12:26

I mean, the technology smart. So you can be done. Like I get it

Evan Milberg  12:30

exact No. Which, you know, unsophisticated take, but I mean, there's, there's a practicality that's missing there. So

Sean McMahon  12:39

I got you carry what story you have for us next.

Karen Kantor  12:43

And this one is money focused. In this case, we're talking about an article from sustainable brands, a group of 185 or so investors, managing a total of 10 trillion in assets have reached out to about 30, consumer packaged goods companies, including Pepsi, Coca Cola, and Kellogg, plus some retailers like Target and Marks and Spencer, to take some decisive action on the entire plastic lifecycle. They're worried about an annual societal cost of about 100 billion from plastic pollution, not to mention the pushback from consumers, investors just aren't interested in papering over the plastic problem anymore. They're worried about kicking the can down the road to a big trash pile, that they're going to have to clean up later.

Jaan vanValkenburgh  13:32

So everything is in plastic, in some sense, if you if you look at it, your food, your your toiletries, just about everything. But there's a reason why. Because if I see that it's wrapped in plastic, and the plastic isn't ripped, it means it's undamaged, perfect condition on opened, fresh, sanitary. If it doesn't have that sometimes I'll just, I'll look for the one that does have it. Just me, obviously, I have to change my ways. But you've got to convince me as a consumer, that it's still untouched, undamaged. And my hands are the first hands to hold it. And it will not be contaminated in any way. How do you do that? 

Evan Milberg  14:21

This kind of feels like the investor equivalent of that IPCC report to me. It's a lot of you're not on track and you need higher goals and not enough. Here's some tangible solutions we want to see. But I always find it funny when investors act like they're the ones with the most influence when really it's the consumers who are going to make and break these investments. So it's, I don't know if we were to sustainable or suspicious this, this would be on my sauce list.

Karen Kantor  14:52

And I completely disagree with you on this. I feel like investors really have a lot of power consumers to I mean, we can vote with our feet. But the board will answer to the investors every time. And that's why it's companies like Blackrock that get to make a difference. I really feel like if investors are pushing companies are going to invest in the technology. And I do think also yon that people can learn to not look for plastic. When was the last time you didn't buy an Apple? Because it wasn't in plastic, you buy it, you take it home, you wash it, and you eat it. And then you put it in your smart bin. Yes, hopefully.

Sean McMahon  15:36

Okay, Karen, what's the third story you have for us today?

Karen Kantor  15:39

The third story is, again, executives, executives, who graduated from school 20, or 30 years ago, according to the Financial Times, are looking to learn a little bit more about sustainability. They need to learn how to measure and assess their company's sustainability, so that they can create the reports that once again, board members and investors and the public want to hear. So schools around the world are stepping up to fill this gap. You can't talk about leadership without talking about sustainability. At this point, there are sustainability officers. Companies are interested in this. And executives have got to learn how to do the sustainability thing.

Sean McMahon  16:28

Yeah, I think this is a great development. And to your point, like some of these folks when they came out of business school, wherever that was, this wasn't on the radar screen at that time. But I think some of it also at this point is protecting the reputational capital. No one wants to be the CEO who's on a call or on a panel somewhere, and they say some stupid about sustainability that highlights their just fundamental lack of understanding. So yeah, I think this is a definitely a step in the right direction. And, as I hope everyone wants to keep talking about sustainability, that's why we have a podcast about it. Evan, what do you think?

Evan Milberg  17:01

I appreciate the use of the word remedial, that was used here to describe the effort to bridge this knowledge gap. Because we really are playing catch up here. And I would argue that how we embed sustainability education into our schools is even more important than corporate sustainability. Because the people we're teaching now are going to become the executives of the future who are going to be poised to make the most change, because they're the ones who have spent the most time learning about how to do it.

Sean McMahon  17:30

I wonder if we get to a point where it even becomes kind of like a designation? You know, you got your MBA, what about your MSA or something like that? So maybe only time will tell? We'll see.

Jaan vanValkenburgh  17:41

For right now, I think the what's going to be on the syllabi is is so fluid, and what the syllabi looks like right now versus in five years. 10 years may be drastically different.

Evan Milberg  17:55

Sean, I think you make a good point there about how you designate it, because that's really important, particularly in the world of sustainability when you have LEED this and well standard that I think is going to be a really interesting debate about whether or not you embed sustainability education into an MBA program or if it can stand alone.

Sean McMahon  18:16

Yeah, and I think also just in terms of like undergrad majors, right. I think there are some schools out there that are trying to offer courses and majors in this

Evan Milberg  18:24

in particularly in engineering.

Sean McMahon  18:26

Yeah. So all right, wait, Karen, thank you for that fun news roundup. And now it's time for our here in their section where yon takes us somewhere around the world. We're doing something cool related to sustainability. Jaan, where are we going today,

Jaan vanValkenburgh  18:39

The Philippines, because they have lessons to teach us and warnings for how to build an anti litter plastic anti trash campaign, whether that means legislation or just raising awareness. So when we were talking about our last session about sustainability in school, I'm remembering both being in grade school and being told you have to save water, you need to always close the refrigerator door, all of these little things that I learned as a kid because in the 70s, there was a the energy crisis. And you had that generation where it became interesting and so they were teaching in school and I still remember those lessons. Now it was really broad, super broad, but it's it's a base later on it became Don't be wasteful. eat all the food on your plate, because people are starving elsewhere. And my brother and I always clean our plate. If the plate is as big as our arms or tiny we always clear our plate. It's it's a little bit annoying. But and now we've gotten more into the plastic is bad and as a result we're seeing the groceries banning single Use plastic shopping bags. And we know that there's a problem in the ocean. The next step, and this is where the Philippines comes in, is analyzing the trash to find out exactly where it came from. Again, this is not a solution, it is simply looking at it at having a system to look at. Where did it come from? What actual type of plastic is it? Was it from drinking bottled water, or was it for from tourists doing this and this and this, it's important because by 2050, there may be more plastic in the ocean than there are fish. So Philippines has a unique spot in this conversation, because more than a third of the plastic in the world's oceans originate in the Philippines. That's in part because they have widespread poverty. And so they don't buy a Costco sized bag of, of whatever it is, they go to the white in New York, we call it a bodega, but a corner store and they buy little satchels of different things. Each little satchel might have one serving two servings, and it's wrapped in plastic. And all of that becomes a waste. They've had a waste legislation that was passed in 2001. But it hasn't worked. So enter this organization that's called plastic count Filipinas, which is doing research, trying to raise awareness and discovering what microplastics and macro plastics are in the waters of round the Filipinos. So that that will help them build legislation and understanding on how best to effectively in a in a, shall I say siloed way instead of a general way, which is what we've been doing for well, decades, so that we can really solve the problem. Obviously, to analyze trash like this is laborious, therefore expensive. Artificial Intelligence, Philippines is bringing artificial intelligence to trash intelligence. It's a little bit similar to your talking kitchen trash can.

Sean McMahon  22:26

Well, that's fascinating. Yan, can you tell us a little bit more about how the AI works.

Jaan vanValkenburgh  22:32

So they use drone surveying and red Nile staining method for microplastics. They're able to map the waters around the Philippines for different types of plastics. And with the AI, they're able to generate primary data on the true extent of the plastics pollution. There's a interactive map on its website, where you can point to certain areas to see where the problem is. And the data is shared with partners in Japan and the UK with prior data to create a more holistic view. But what it does is the AI learns to recognize certain items. Now it's still learning. So it sometimes gets things wrong. But it can pick out what these different items actually are. Is it a spoon? Is it a bottle? And what have you. And from that they can make assumptions about different uses of these things and how best to address it. Oh, that's awesome.

Sean McMahon  23:37

I mean, again, always good to hear AI being used for something good in the world these days. Everyone look like yeah, some thoughts on this.

Evan Milberg  23:45

I think it's a really interesting development. I think the key to making it work is making sure the data are reliable. As we've seen with chat, GBT AI automation, as Yan was saying can often yield inaccurate content. So this effort is going to lean heavily on human volunteers. And I think it's a great example of how AI is ready to change the world without appending humans place in it.

Sean McMahon  24:12

Okay, well, thanks, Jaan. I always appreciate it when you take us around the world with this segment. So that about wraps it up for our roundtable discussion today. And now it's time to switch gears to the interview portion of today's episode. First, I'm going to have a quick conversation with Roman Smith from AT&T and then Evan will be chatting with Dan Coughlin from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. But first, here's a quick word from the sponsor of today's episode LyondellBasell. 

LyondellBasell is the home of the Circulen family of sustainable solutions. The team at LyondellBasell is constantly helping its customers develop more sustainable products, lower their carbon footprint and unlock the circular potential of plastics. Visit lyondellbasell.com/circulon to learn more, or click on the link in the show notes. 

Okay, since part of the focus of today's episode is recycling, you're now going to hear a quick conversation about something cool that AT&T is doing to solve a very real world recycling challenge. I'll also go ahead and tease that you'll be hearing more from AT&T on an upcoming episode of this show. But right now, I want to bring in Roman Smith AT&T's Director of Global Environmental sustainability and social innovation. Roman, welcome to the show.

Roman Smith  25:34

Well, thank you. I appreciate the time. Thank you for having me.

Sean McMahon  25:37

All right. I'm excited to have you on to hear more about a tool that you've deployed at some of AT&T's largest offices to tackle a recycling conundrum that I am certain every single listener of this show has encountered. Roman, tell us more.

Roman Smith  25:50

Yeah, so it's called Oscar. And it's actually from a company by the name of intuitive robotics, we have an issue where we just don't know where trash goes, right. So we go out to the three trash cans you see landfill compost, and recycling, and you're like, and then you just throw it away, you hope that no one sees you coming behind you, right? So we need help in this space. Right. And so I'll just say this, you know, kind of give us some background here. Because at att and many other job of work locations, we have a large workforce, we have an issue where the streams are just contaminated. And we try to engage our employees. And it's just hard. You know, we're a technology company. So we were looking for some technological solution to this. And let me tell you, I found this AI technology is the world's first AI technology around waste management. And basically, it is a system that takes the guesswork out of how do you sort your trash. So basically, you go up to it, and it interacts with you. And it tells you where your trash goes and what bin it goes into. So it's pretty, pretty cool. It's definitely gotten a lot of eyes here.

Sean McMahon  26:53

Yeah, regular listeners of the show will know that I like to joke about AI and how there's always negative headlines. But I'm still a big believer that AI is out there doing good things for the world. I've seen the video for this. And we're going to share the video in the show notes for today. But just kind of walk me through how it's set up. You know, you're in the cafeteria, you're done eating, and you're walking out of the cafeteria getting ready to leave. And then what's the setup? Like?

Roman Smith  27:15

Yeah, so. So setup is you have your bins, the recycling, compost landfill, you have a large interactive screen that's right above these repositories. And basically, Oscar is sitting there. And just it's funny. It's named Oscar, but it has a woman's voice. And she comes out

Sean McMahon  27:32

Timeout… timeout. You didn't like licensed the voice from Sesame Street for this?

Roman Smith  27:37

 No, no,no, I wish we could have Yeah. When we had Warner Media, they we could have done that. We can't do that now.

Sean McMahon  27:44

Exactly. The long tentacles of a conglomerate. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Roman Smith  27:50

No, no, it's okay. So so she says, hey, you know, my name is Oscar, put your trash in this location. And there's a camera there and you put your trash right up to the, to the spot where the camera kind of shines down on it. And you can see on the on the screen where it actually has like a red marker that says, hey, you know, it's identifying this piece of trash or you're holding your hand. And then at that moment, it has three screens, and it won't say, hey, if it's a plastic cup, that it will show the blue screen on the far left and show recycling. And what's great about this is that Oscar is actually has been, it's learning. So the thing that was really interesting for me, and when we install this, it's not just a system that you just code and it just hey, this is how it works. And you know, you got to go through and go through all every single thing you have in your cafeteria that might be trash, and code it to recognize this piece of material. This is actually you know, it came on board. And it's actually has to brain it's actually learning it's kind of it's kind of kind of eerie, right? But it's actually learning over time. It may not have told us the right way for this this particular material in the last couple of months. But it has learned that oh, this needs to go this way. And the one thing we aren't able to code for it, our local regulations. So that's that's one of the things we're able to code it.

Sean McMahon  29:04

Okay, and so then obviously, Oscar is just one small piece of of all the efforts at AT&T is trying to roll out. So right now, we're talking about just in how many locations a couple office headquarters and things like so.

Roman Smith  29:15

Yeah. So we have it at our Dallas headquarters down in the cafeteria. We have two installations of it. And it really for us, it's a trial. So you know, we're the first company in Texas to actually try this thing. So we installed it, you know, we're starting to get some good data from it. I will say this, you know, we've had a goal here on campus to say, hey, in your daily life on campus, can we have a goal of diverting at least 30% of your waste from landfill? We're already seeing about a 40% with Oscar and the great thing that it's teaching us that Whoa, like if this is a small subset of what's happening across the entire campus, man, we are getting some things wrong. give you example, you have brown and you have white napkins. It's not really clear on Is that compost? Is that? Is that recycle? And then for us as a business, we're going to, why do we have two different colors? Right? Why don't we just have one? And why not? Why not just be compost, right? So just little things like that are some of this the learnings that we're starting to get from this machine?

Sean McMahon  30:17

Sounds like you're gonna be expanding it and the results are pretty positive so far. 

Roman Smith  30:20

Yeah, so far, they have been positive, and I do hope we are able to expand it, we'll continue to, you know, watch what we're doing here. And hopefully, you know, middle of this year, we can make some determinations on expanded that the great thing about Oscar is that even though there is each installation, Oscar is one brain. So if we went and expanded this to 15 additional floors, it's just one brain that the brain is going to just continue to move on to each piece of machinery. So what I hope to see in the future is like, we can start to put this on different floors and start to do some competitions, right, you know, who, who's doing it better, you know, who's actually listening to Oscar. So that's the hope for the future of this one.

Sean McMahon  31:00

That is incredible. I certainly hope that's what the future holds. There's so many applications out there for this kind of technology. I mean, you know, we had Liliana Esposito from Wendy's on the show recently. And I bet folks like her in the restaurant industry would love to get their hands on technology like Oscar. So hey, listen, Roman, this has been awesome. I truly appreciate you taking the time to come on the show to talk about this. 

Roman Smith  31:22

Well, thank you. I appreciate the time. Thank you for having me.

Sean McMahon  31:25

Okay, I hope you all enjoyed hearing about Oscar, and what Roman and the team at AT&T are doing to tackle recycling. But right now, I'm gonna kick things over to Evan for his conversation with Dan Coughlin, the Leader of Industrial Collaborations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Evan, take it away.

Evan Milberg  31:43

So today, we are joined by a former colleague of mine, Dan Coughlin from Oak Ridge National Laboratory as that segment of the Department of Energy. Dan, thanks for joining us today.

Dan Coughlin  31:55

Glad to be with you again, Evan, greetings to all of your audience. And happy to be working with you again,

Evan Milberg  32:01

Dan. And I used to work for the American composites Manufacturers Association, which actually worked closely with Oak Ridge. And so Dan, tell us a little bit about what you're doing now. ORNL, and the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility.

Dan Coughlin  32:16

Yeah, I just joined the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility A little over a year ago, spent most of my career in industry and in both manufacturing and research. And Oak Ridge National Lab is a large facility, about 2.7 billion in annual spend, and research and development. I work in a special part of Oak Ridge National Lab, which is the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility. And here we do the translational research is really a lot of heavy lifting, to get things out of the research environment and into the hands of industry. So part of my job is to help connect our researchers to industry to both understand what is needed by them to meet their goals, to de risk technologies that are important to the future success of their business, the supply chain, the workforce, and also to bring to our researchers, the collaborative partnerships they need to be successful because everything we do here at the MDF, and I'll talk later about our collaboration with the University of Maine through our hub and spoke renew 3d program. Everything we do is in collaboration with industry, because it's so important to have that industrial perspective to make sure that we're working on the things that are commercially relevant and important to growing our economy in a sustainable way. And by the way, I'm part it within the MDF, I'm part of the sustainable manufacturing technologies program. So that's a subgroup within the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility. So everything we do is built around sustainability, which is certainly a hot topic today, for industry. And so it's such a pleasure to work with so many talented people here to leverage the context that I have out in industry, to provide solutions and form collaborative partnerships to address some of the critical needs. And to de risk the technology needed to grow our economy.

Evan Milberg  34:07

We hear a lot about bringing technologies from r&d to the market. And I think that's a very abstract concept for a lot of people. So can you tell me a little bit about how that process works and how it starts?

Dan Coughlin  34:21

Yes. So the process of connecting researchers to industry is a very iterative process. So it starts with a need. And it also starts with some ideas and some technical ideas on the part of the researchers. But there's a lot of iteration needed to make sure that you're working on the things that are relevant in a way that will enable them to be picked up by industry. And there isn't I don't think a magic formula except to keep iterating and keep working with the folks from industry and checking back to say okay, if I solve this problem is that the problem you Need to have solved? And what are the barriers to that need to be overcome for you to adopt this technology and make a commercial. So we spent, you know, we have over 7000 visitors a year, here at the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, to really zero in on that very topic, you know, working on the things that are relevant. And I have to say one of the things that's really rewarding about working in this role, with the researchers that we have here is these are not sort of armchair researchers sitting back. And just concerned with publications, they're really concerned with getting the technology out there and solving the hard problems. They're really difficult problems that industry needs to have solved. That back and forth interaction between the researchers and industry is critical to making this work.

Evan Milberg  35:47

What are some of the biggest sustainability challenges ORNL is tackling right now?

Dan Coughlin  35:53

If you look at what industry is being asked to do, and what you know, the leaders in industry are asking their, you know, asking their teams to come up with it's a fairly broad range of sustainability related goals, and kind of it kind of starts there. And if you look at from a regional standpoint, the United States and North America is driven mostly from the consumer, and the investor and the end from the end user. Whereas other regions of the world are driven more from the regulatory side. So we work hand in glove with the businesses and their end customers, to make sure we understand, you know, what's coming down the pike. But if you look out into the corporate ecosystem that's out there, automotive companies, energy companies, materials, suppliers, consumer products, companies, aerospace companies, they're all looking for more sustainable ways to deliver the service, the materials, the goods that people need, in a way that reduces the greenhouse gas impact. You know, everybody's pretty much got net zero emissions goals, whether it's 2030, or 2040, or 2050. They have water use goals, reductions in waste, and circularity, sustainable sourcing, and then they need to do all that in compliance with environmental and regulatory rules. So all of that is part of the system that we respond to in the sustainable manufacturing technologies group.

Evan Milberg  37:30

So you mentioned aerospace, can you tell me a little bit about some of the work that you're doing with major aerospace OEMs and tooling?

Dan Coughlin  37:40

Yeah. So that's one of the one of the more interesting areas and it kind of starts with tooling. And for folks not familiar what tooling is, essentially, it's the mold that they use to make the Wing or the vertical stabilizer, other aerospace part. So the tool is the mold used. And those tools are made from high tech materials, sometimes, you know, high tech polymers and with reinforced with fibers like carbon fiber, and what we figured out how to do is take tooling and recycle it, and bring it back into the stream for to make another tool, which is part of the circularity of materials. And we know we can do this for significantly less cost than the original material cost for that tool, and also reduce the environmental footprint. So that's one part that we're playing in helping to figure out how to make a truly circular supply chain from materials.

Evan Milberg  38:37

So what kind of parts are these toolings making?

Dan Coughlin  38:41

So the toolings are used to make parts on the aircraft, their external parts, such as, like I said, parts for the wing parts for the control surfaces, vertical stabilizer, we're not working on the larger parts for the fuselage as yet. But we are working on some tools for some fairly significant parts on the aircraft outside of the fuselage.

Evan Milberg  39:11

So Dan, can you tell me a little bit about the way ORNL is introducing that circularity to the wind industry?

Dan Coughlin  39:19

Yeah, we're working on this in a couple of different ways. So one is we're working on ways to make components for the wind industry in particular, the blades, these are very large, now the blades are getting over 100 meters each. So that's that's quite a swept area. And you've got to make them basically today using technology which is borrowed from the boat building industry. And the the lifecycle of those blades, you know, they're supposed to be up on the tower for 20 years, but many times they get replaced partway through their life because a larger blade, which is more economical is available. We just went through a major repair Oregon. And there's a lot of wind blades that need to be repurposed, recycled. And we've been working on that. And in fact, there's a spin off from. From here at Oak Ridge National Lab and the Acme Institute, where they in Knoxville, they're taking old wind blades, and they're recycling them, and turning them into both energy and then extracting the fibers to produce new wind blades. So really exciting to see that happening right here in our backyard and Knoxville. In addition to the circularity of the blades that were up there previously, we're working on new solutions for wind blades, which use both renewable and recyclable materials. We're working together with the major companies in the wind industry. And we've just invested significantly here at Oak Ridge National Lab, and going to we're going to be growing our large scale additive manufacturing, specifically for the problem of Windblade production, with multi had a system where we can print much, much faster than the traditional 3d printing system, and combined 3d printing with other high speed manufacturing technologies to make wind blades and do it all from recyclable materials, including thermal plastics, which can be more easily recycled. We're also working on developing the next generation of materials to make the wind blades from recycled materials from other industries. And we're working on things like VIP trimmers where you can upcycle you can actually take a polymer which was designed for a less demanding application, and upcycle it into a more demanding application. So we're working on, you know, the process of shredding and, and collecting and reprocessing, as well as for future wind blades, figuring out how to make them from renewable, recyclable materials. So it's much more easy to repurpose them at the end of life, and also save costs, and automate the process. Because right now, as you know, workforce is a key issue that we're dealing with, and we need to make our workforce more productive. So we're doing this all through automation, 3d printing, combining 3d printing, but other high speed manufacturing processes, so that we can produce very large parts economically and quickly, and make our workforce more productive.

Evan Milberg  42:25

That's awesome, Dan. So when can we expect to see some of these Second Life products from wind blades in commercial applications?

Dan Coughlin  42:35

Yeah, actually, there will be a conference here June 20 21st, and 22nd here in Knoxville, called Renew3D ….  renew3d.com. If you go and look on that website, you'll find our three day conference and you'll be able to see some of those demonstration parts. There'll be a tour of the Windblade recycling facility here in Knoxville, you get a tour of our main campus and of our Manufacturing Demonstration Facility. So you'll get to see firsthand how we're accomplishing the tasks of making large parts more efficiently upskilling our workforce and making them from renewable materials?

Evan Milberg  43:16

That's really great. I also know that you guys are working not just with polymer composites, but also bio based materials. And you guys recently created what I believe is the first additively manufactured house from bio based materials. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Dan Coughlin  43:34

Yeah, we're really excited about it. It's what we call biohome 3d. And it's made from essentially wood flour and a renewable polymer. All the ceilings, walls and floors were printed on a large scale printer. That technology was co developed between the University of Maine and Oak Ridge National Lab, we're getting up to 500 pounds an hour to be able to print very large parts. This printer was 60 feet long. And the next generation of printer we're calling factory of the future will be 120 feet long. So imagine being able to print these much more quickly. And in fact, this home, which was a demonstration project has led to kind of the next generation of things which is helping to solve the urgent crisis we have of housing, housing for people who are either finding themselves homeless, or you know, because it's so difficult and expensive to find housing these days. Over the next three years. The Humane is going to be looking at ways to work with the main housing authority to use this technology to print very large scale systems, a housing, maybe even multi unit housing, where you can print the walls, the ceilings and the floors off site. And then when you get to the site, all the utilities are in bedded within the walls and floors. So essentially what you're doing is a sort of like a Lego system, that you're connecting them on site. And again, we're doing this with recyclable renewable materials. If you look at the technology before this latest round of increasing the scale, you know, you're limited to about a cubic foot. And it was slow and expensive to produce maybe about $100 a pound, for the manufacturing process. In the big area additive manufacturing process, we were able to produce things over 5000 cubic feet, at much less at much lower cost of less than $5 a pound. So one machine can go through very large quantity of material in a day be much more productive than it used to be. And like I said, we're the next generation is going to be factory of the future. But if you look at over time, you know, in 2013, we started out with something seven feet by seven feet, so not even the size of a room in 10 pounds per hour 2014, we went up to, you know, seven by 13. So now now getting to the size of a small room, and 40 pounds an hour, so four times as fast. And then a 2015, eight feet by 20 feet, okay? Now we can produce something, you know, reasonable size, 100 pounds per hour. But if you look at the in 2019, what they built up at you mean 22 feet by 60 feet by 10 feet, 500 pounds an hour, now you're getting to a very high production rate, now you're getting to compete with traditional manufacturing, it's requires a whole different skill set. So we're looking at creating a whole new workforce built around these technologies. And as I said, the next generation, you know, we just got to this 22 foot by 60 foot, it made this biome 3d. But you know, the first question after we do the demonstration is, hey, how do we print, you know, 50 100 1000 of these things, because there's this critical shortage of housing. And there's also a critical shortage of material. And by the way, a lot of what is produced with this is produced with residual from wood processing. So if you think about all the wood processing that happens, either for pulp and paper products, or four dimensional wood for traditional house building, and other applications, there's a lot of residual waste, that's underutilized, a lot of it gets burned. So how do we turn that into a raw material, and that's exactly what we did with this big area additive manufacturing. And then with the widescale additive manufacturing, in 2019. And soon will start up, University of Maine will start up the factory of the future, which will be over 120 feet long, a really another quantum leap in the capability in parallel with that, here at Oak Ridge, like I said, we're trying to figure out how to print objects that are larger than the system itself. So how do you do that? That's a whole nother track of technology. And then how do you combine it with other high speed manufacturing processes. So we're looking at moving additive manufacturing out of sort of the prototyping phase out of just making tools into a high speed, manufacturing environment, and solving real world problems, I'm really excited about the work that you may is going to be doing with the main housing authority over the next three years to actually print and help solve some of the housing crisis. They're in their region. But the technology again, because of the partnership here with Oak Ridge National Lab, has national implications. And it's all based on materials sourced produced here in the US than a renewable. The polymer in this case was made from essentially made from corn. And the the fiber that is the residual fiber from these wood processing centers. So it's all domestically sourced, and greenhouse gas neutral materials going into these products as well.

Evan Milberg  49:07

Yeah, one of the big things that I think is affecting every industry right now, is the availability of materials through a very strained supply chain. Are your colleagues doing anything in the realm of manufacturing solutions that help address gaps in the supply chain?

Dan Coughlin  49:28

Absolutely. So. So basically, there are a couple of different ways that we're approaching this. And a lot of the work we do is in composites, and a composite really is, is the combination of two materials usually it's a polymer. So we're working with renewable polymers. Some of them are new renewable polymers and some more polymers made from renewable sources that we're already familiar with. And then also combining that with fibers to add strength and stiffness, in particular cellulose. Now That's why our partnership with humane has been really productive because they're figuring out ways to incorporate cellulose into more and more materials. You know, when this project started between you, Maine and Oak Ridge, five or six years ago, now, there was an urgent need to kind of restart the forest products industry in Maine, a lot of the old paper mills was shutting down. And we're looking for new ways to utilize a cellulosic materials, which are some of the most ubiquitous materials available. So they're widely available in the United States. And they're renewable. And they're also biodegradable. So we're looking for more ways to use them. We can't really take credit for everything that's been happening recently, but a lot of single use plastics have been displaced recently with cellulosic materials, you know, paper and, and other cellulose based packaging. But we're looking to expand the use of cellulose into more and more areas, into durable goods into housing, and expand it into more areas of packaging. So that we produce things that are both renewable, they don't contribute to greenhouse gases. They're recyclable, but they're also biodegradable, and don't have as much impact on the environment. We hear a lot about co2 in the atmosphere, co2 emissions from different factories. How do you use co2 as a material feedstock? Because there's a lot of companies trying to figure out how to extract co2 from factory emissions, and sequester the material. But can we turn that into a raw material? Can we turn that co2 into a raw material? So we're looking at ways to take that co2 and make phones and plastics and other materials so that we can create market pull for a co2 based economy where we're not just creating co2? We're turning that into a raw material and part of our supply chain.

Evan Milberg  51:55

So what would that entail from a manufacturing perspective?

Dan Coughlin  51:58

Yeah, so from a manufacturing perspective, again, we're not involved in the co2 capture part we're trying to figure out, okay, lots of companies are investing in that area. How can we utilize that co2 capture in creating polymers and creating materials? So we're working on that part of the equation. So you can think of things like door panels, interior door panels to a vehicle, you can think of building materials, which could be sourced using co2. And instead of using hydrocarbons, you know, from oil and gas, now you're extracting co2, which otherwise would either go into the atmosphere or already be in the atmosphere, you're turning that into a durable good.

Evan Milberg  52:43

That's really great. So if you're a company, and you have this great idea that you want to bring to market and you want to collaborate with ORNL, What's the process like?

Dan Coughlin  52:54

Yeah, so like I said, we have 7000 visitors a year, we have a couple of different ways you can come into our program. So like I said, we have a hub and spoke program with the University of Maine, we have that Renew3d conference where we'll both be kind of showcasing what we do, June 20 21st, and 22nd. Here in Knoxville, if you go on Renew3D.com online, you can register for that conference. And you can see what we do up close and personal. If that timing doesn't work for you, if you'd like to schedule a different time to come and visit us and see what we do, you can contact me Dan Coughlin, CoughlinDR@ornl.gov, you can reach out to me and be happy to connect you with the right folks. Again, we're working in all areas of manufacturing, processing, and materials to make them more sustainable. So whether it's the consumer products area, the industrial products, area, aerospace, automotive, energy, all those areas are impacted by our programming, we're looking for more sustainable solutions, recyclable solutions that are also lower cost. You know, one of the things that someone told me a while ago, I think it was John Warner, who wrote the book on green chemistry. He said, hey, if I have a material, which performs the same function, or better, and cost the same or less, and is more sustainable, why wouldn't you use that material? Right? I think that's really the you know, that's sort of the world that we live in. We're trying to figure out how to meet the needs, industrial needs that they have with less sustainable materials and less sustainable processes by CO inventing both the material stream and the manufacturing stream. Like I said, our partnership with the University of Maine has been excellent for that. We also here at Oak Ridge partner with other universities around the country. So if there are other universities and Centers of Excellence who would like to work with us, feel free to contact me. We're definitely interested in partnering with other centers of excellence. But if your company is looking at a technology, which is further upstream, and you're saying, That's not quite ready for me yet I see the publication I see someone's done it in the lab. It is more sustainable, it does potentially provide a solution that my customers would be interested in. If you see something like that, definitely reach out to me, I'd be happy to talk about how we can help take out some of that risk as part of our core research here at the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility.

Evan Milberg  55:31

All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. This was really fascinating.

Dan Coughlin  55:36

Thank you. Take care.

Sean McMahon  55:42

All right, everyone. Well, that's our show for today. But before we get out of here, I want to say one final thank you to our sponsor, LyondellBasell. Be sure you go to their website and check out their Circulen family of sustainable solutions. 

Thank you all for listening. And if you haven't already, please subscribe or follow this show on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And as always, please be sure to share it with your friends and colleagues. Have a great day.