For years, discussions around waste management have often focused on finding a single solution capable of addressing every waste stream. Whether the conversation centers on recycling, waste-to-energy, advanced recycling, or alternative fuels, there is a tendency to search for a universal answer.
In practice, however, the most effective resource recovery strategies rarely rely on a single technology. Instead, they recognize an important reality: different waste streams require different recovery pathways.
This principle is becoming increasingly important as industries, municipalities, and policymakers seek practical solutions to reduce landfill dependence while maximizing the value recovered from discarded materials.
At its core, resource recovery is about matching the right material with the right technology.
Consider mixed plastic waste. Certain plastic streams are well suited for mechanical recycling and can be converted into new plastic products. Others are too contaminated, too degraded, or too complex to be economically recycled through conventional methods. These materials often end up in landfills despite containing significant hydrocarbon value.
Advanced recycling technologies, such as FlexOnyx’s FlexFeed™, are designed to address these more challenging streams by converting plastics into valuable transportation fuels and petrochemical feedstocks. Rather than treating plastics as waste, the process recognizes them as a concentrated source of hydrocarbons that can be recovered and returned to productive use.
Yet plastics represent only one portion of the broader waste landscape.
Industrial facilities, manufacturing operations, commercial enterprises, and institutional generators produce a wide variety of residual materials that contain recoverable energy but may not be suitable for conversion into transportation fuels. Paper fiber residues, packaging materials, process byproducts, and other non-hazardous industrial wastes often fall into this category.
This is where engineered fuels play a critical role.
For more than a decade, Convergen Energy, under the leadership of Steve Brooks and Ted Hansen, has demonstrated that carefully engineered fuel products can divert substantial volumes of industrial waste from landfills while providing a practical fuel source for power generation and thermal energy applications. By transforming selected residual materials into engineered fuel pellets, these waste streams can be utilized in existing industrial and utility infrastructure rather than being discarded.
Importantly, this does not mean every waste stream should become fuel pellets.
Likewise, not every waste stream should be converted into transportation fuels.
The strongest resource recovery systems recognize that different materials possess different characteristics, economics, and recovery opportunities. Some materials are ideally suited for advanced recycling. Others are better utilized through engineered fuel production. Some may remain best suited for traditional recycling. The goal should not be to force all materials into a single pathway but to identify the pathway that delivers the greatest environmental and economic benefit.
This integrated approach can significantly improve overall landfill diversion rates.
A common challenge in waste management is that technologies are frequently evaluated in isolation. Advanced recycling advocates may focus on plastics. Waste-to-energy operators may focus on combustible residuals. Traditional recyclers may focus on clean recyclable streams.
In reality, the waste stream itself does not arrive neatly separated according to technology categories.
A practical resource recovery strategy begins with material characterization and sorting, followed by directing each fraction toward its highest-value use. Plastics with strong hydrocarbon content may be candidates for advanced recycling. Industrial residuals with favorable energy characteristics may be suitable for engineered fuel production. Recyclable materials should be recycled whenever feasible.
The result is a more comprehensive system that recovers value from a broader range of materials while reducing landfill dependence.
Equally important is the use of existing infrastructure.
One of the most overlooked advantages of both advanced recycling and engineered fuels is that they can often leverage infrastructure that already exists. Refineries, fuel distribution systems, industrial boilers, power generation facilities, and transportation networks represent enormous investments that can be utilized rather than replaced. This practical approach reduces implementation risk and improves scalability.
As resource recovery continues to evolve, collaboration between different technologies may prove more important than competition between them.
Industry leaders such as Greg Merle and Steve Brooks have long recognized that resource recovery is not a question of choosing one solution over another. The future lies in creating systems that maximize recovery across multiple pathways while maintaining economic viability and operational practicality.
The waste challenges facing modern society are simply too diverse to be solved by any single technology.
The real opportunity lies in building integrated recovery systems that recognize the strengths of each approach. Advanced recycling and engineered fuels are not competing solutions. In many cases, they are complementary tools that work best together—helping transform waste streams into valuable resources while supporting a more sustainable and practical circular economy.
About the Author
Gregory Merle is President of FlexOnyx and has over 20 years of experience in energy, refining, resource recovery, advanced recycling, industrial project development, and waste-to-value infrastructure.
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