Christine Hughes
Resource Recovery and Recycling Lead
“Recycling is crucial for meeting our sustainbility goals.”
Since her early career building electric motorcycles, Christine has been passionate about advancing sustainable solutions. Based in Vancouver, Canada, Christine joined our materials handling department seven years ago with the ambition to make a global impact.
Today, as the Manager of the Resource Recovery and Recycling team, Christine leads efforts to create circular solutions across industries. Her team works on a unique blend of management consulting and technical projects. This includes helping customers develop and implement effective resource management through logistics and supply chain planning to reduce waste, as well as designing material recovery facilities to recover valuable plastics, metals, and fibers from waste streams.
Where is ‘Away’?
The recycling landscape has changed drastically over the last decade. “We used to just throw our waste ‘away’ and forget,” Christine explains. “It was very much an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality.”
In 2017, China’s ban on waste imports forced many countries to manage their waste domestically. In response, several countries have implemented Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations. “The concept is that when you create a product, you’re responsible for its full lifecycle – whether it ends up in a landfill or, ideally, is repurposed for a new product.” Christine likens the ERP regulations to Scope 2 and 3 emission tracking for CO2.
She’s optimistic about the effect these regulations will have. “Globally, only nine percent of our plastics are recycled. However, we know from case studies that scaling this to five time that amount is achievable.”
“Germany, for example, is already recycling over 60 percent of their plastics with mechanical recycling technologies alone. In North America, where we recycle only seven percent of our plastic, there is a massive opportunity and we’ve seen a surge in projects over the last five years.”
A global problem with global solutions
“Recycling is a global challenge,” Christine says. “Waste is everywhere and affects everyone. These projects have given me the opportunity to travel the world, from Australia to Costa Rica to Belgium and across the USA to work with different clients. Each location teaches you something new, and you bring those insights together to build the best solution for every project.”
Christine emphasizes that as technology improves, it makes recycling more accessible. “Chemical recycling, where plastics are converted into biofuels or new plastics, is a promising development. It allows us to use plastics that were previously uneconomical to recycle. We’ve been partnering with traditional oil and gas engineers and leveraging their experience with hydrocarbons to develop more effective technologies for chemical recycling.”
With progress in both corporate policies and technology, Christine is optimistic about achieving a sustainable, circular economy. “We’re seeing real momentum,” she adds, “and I believe we are on the path to making that vision a reality.”
