Unbending plastics: surging demand from China further hampers U.S. reclaimers of post-consumer PET and HDPE plastics

Recycling Today, March, 2004 by Deanne Toto

SINGLED OUT. The APC credits the increase in HDPE recycling with the fact that HDPE containers hold milk, household cleaners and other products that are used at home and are, therefore, more easily captured by curbside recycling programs. PET, however, is largely used to make single-serve beverage containers that are often consumed away from home.

Schmidt says collecting single-serve PET beverage containers is a challenge. To help address this issue, NAPCOR has developed the Single-Serve Recycling Toolkit, which provides tips for establishing venue and special event recycling.

"Despite near-record prices being paid for all of these materials, there has not been a corresponding increase in collection," Dunbar says. "Consumers are not as enamored with recycling as they were in the 1990s. In addition, competing demands and reduced tax revenues have resulted in reduction or termination of some municipal recycling programs."

Franklin says deposit systems, or bottle bills, are the obvious solution to PET collection problems. "Of out two primary collection infrastructures--curbside recycling and deposit laws (or bottle bills)--bottle bills are far more effective in retrieving these containers," she says. "The reason is that there is a financial incentive involved. It's the same thing that makes aluminum can recycling more successful than plastic bottle recycling."

To illustrate her point, Franklin contrasts the recycling rates for PET soda bottles to that for custom PET bottles. In 2002, PET soda bottles, which were included in the 10 deposit systems then in place, were recycled at a rate of 31 percent. However, custom PET containers, which are used for water bottles and only included in two deposit systems at die time, were recycled at a rate of 11 percent. "That can be attributed to the fact that PET soda bottles are recycled at a much higher rate in bottle bill states because they have a deposit value," she says.

Dunbar, however, finds inherent value in plastic bottles. "Since plastic bottles are the second most valuable container commodity typically collected in residential recycling programs, this translates into a higher average container stream value, which can offset processing costs for recyclers," she says.

Schmidt says issues at MRFs also negatively impact the recycling rate for plastic bottles. For instance, he says a number of PET bottles collected at drop-off centers or through curbside programs are being discarded at MRFs. Schmidt blames poor worker training mid high worker turnover for the problem. "Workers are not necessarily trained to the point where they recognize a PET bottle given the various applications that are out there now. They all obviously recognize soft drink and water bottles, but they may not know that a shampoo bottle, for example, [could be] made of PET," he says.

The underlying issues surrounding plastics recycling, or recycling in general, seem to be education and motivation.

"Motivating and properly educating consumers on an ongoing basis, making it simple for them to recycle, providing more away-from-home recycling and looking at potential losses of plastic bottles from the processing end of things should help increase the supply of post-consumer plastic bottles," Dunbar says.