ASHLEY, Ind. (Inside INdiana Business) – California-based Brightmark Energy has completed a pilot program for boat wrap collection with a marine services dealer located near the company’s plastics-to-fuel plant in the Steuben County town of Ashley. Brightmark says the project, supported by the Northeast Indiana Solid Waste Management District, aimed to divert the boat wrap taken from boats in winter storage from going into the waste stream.

Brightmark says the wrap, which is a low-density polyethylene, is similar to heavy duty garbage bags and is difficult to recycle. The company says it can create a second use for the old wrap by collecting it from local marinas and turning it into a fuel source for local vehicles and power boats, instead of sending the wrap to local landfills.

Brightmark says the collected material will be used as a feedstock to produce transportation fuel and wax at the Ashley facility. The diesel and gasoline blendstocks produced from the boat wrap and other co-mingled plastic waste will be sold to United Kingdom-based BP (NYSE: BP) and sent to the wholesale transportation fuel pool in the Midwest.

Brightmark says its now planning an expansion of the program to additional marinas located in the counties serviced by NISWMD, which include DeKalb, LaGrange, Noble and Steuben counties.

“A lot of our boat owners have asked what they can do with the boat wrap because they want to do right by the environment, but we haven’t been able to give them a good solution,” said Terry Archbold, owner of Dry Dock Marina in Angola. “Now we can give them a suitable option and fulfill that need to act sustainably.”

Brightmark says there are more than 11 million boats registered in the U.S., of which many need to be wrapped when they are in dry dock during the winter months. The amount of boat wrap removed each year, when recycled, would equal nearly 21,000 barrels of renewable fuel.

ASHLEY, Ind. (Inside INdiana Business) — California-based Brightmark Energy is set to host a career fair for its $260 million plastics-to-fuel plant in the Steuben County town of Ashley. The event, which will run Friday and Saturday, will feature a variety of available salaried and hourly positions at the facility.

The career fair will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. both days at the Ashley Community Center, located at 500 S. Gonser Avenue. Some of the available positions include maintenance, material handlers, team leaders, and process mechanical and chemical engineers, among others.

Construction on the 112,000-square-foot facility began last May and Brightmark says the finish line is rapidly approaching. The company says the plant will initially be able to convert about 100,000 tons of plastics into more than 18 million gallons of ultra-low sulfur diesel and naphtha blend socks, as well as 6 million gallons of commercial grade wax annually.

In December, Brightmark announced a partnership with Indianapolis-based RecycleForce to help fill its workforce needs. The facility is expected to employ some 130 workers.