The new law prohibits stores from giving out single-use bags and places an 8-cent fee on paper or reusable plastic bags. | Natalie Board/Shutterstock
Washington state will ban thin plastic bags and require thicker film bags to be made with post-consumer plastic.
Regulatory changes, and an overall sense of uncertainty, are playing into difficulty moving scrap materials abroad. | 28 November Studio/Shutterstock
Overseas markets for recovered plastic, including Malaysia and India, are experiencing disruption as governments enact widespread restrictions and close ports in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) will boost subsidies to help keep California carpet recycling companies afloat. | ND700/Shutterstock
A stewardship group is boosting subsidies for California’s carpet recycling companies, which have been hit with a double whammy of coronavirus impacts and low virgin plastic prices.
The $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act includes $377 billion for small businesses. | ItzaVU/Shutterstock
The bipartisan stimulus bill signed into law by President Trump last week includes hundreds of billions of dollars in assistance to companies with fewer than 500 employees.
In communities around the country, recycling programs are limiting the materials they collect, altering service hours or shutting down altogether. | Oksana Shturo/Shutterstock
Recycling programs nationwide have curtailed service due to the coronavirus pandemic, potentially hampering the supply of scrap plastics moving to reclaimers in the weeks to come.
Tangent Technologies announced that it acquired Bedford Technology in late February. | YP photographer/Shutterstock
A company that recycles HDPE into composite lumber has acquired another manufacturer in the same space.
The federal government and states that have issued “stay-at-home” orders have decided recycling businesses are “essential.” | youkatan/Shutterstock
In the states that have issued stay-at-home orders, companies engaged in recycling processing or plastic product manufacturing are not subject to forced shutdowns.
An ongoing battle between OPEC and Russia is flooding the market with cheap barrels of oil, threatening downward pressure on virgin plastics prices. | Rebekah Zemansky/Shutterstock
Construction has been delayed on two large U.S. prime plastics plants – one because of high costs and the other due to coronavirus. At the same time, an oil price war put downward pressure on virgin plastic prices.
North American plastics recycling companies are working to prevent the spread of coronavirus within their operations. | joshimerbin/Shutterstock
The global escalation of COVID-19 is leading reclaimers to enact new safety regulations, while on a wider scale it impacts some collection programs, reduces Asian scrap plastics demand, constrains global shipping, dents stock prices and threatens an economic recession.
The EcoCart is made with 10% post-consumer HDPE derived from bulky rigids. | Courtesy of Cascade Cart Solutions
Cascade Cart Solutions has produced 22 million carts for Waste Management over three decades, but last week marked a milestone: the first time the company has deployed carts made with recycled curbside residential plastics.