This story originally appeared in the November 2016 issue of Plastics Recycling Update.
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This story originally appeared in the November 2016 issue of Plastics Recycling Update.
Subscribe today for access to all print content.
In the last two years, there has been a positive shift by previously recalcitrant brands to accept the importance of packaging recycling as part of total product life cycle and to commit to increasing packaging recyclability.
Working with the ever-changing stream of packaging innovations is a constant challenge for the plastics recycling industry.
The PET package has come a long way since the founding of the National Association for PET Container Resources in October of 1987.
During the past year, the national average price of post-consumer PET beverage bottles and jars rose steadily by 68 percent, from 8.6 cents per pound in March 2016 to the current 14.5 cents per pound.
Single-use packaging is easy to spot. A short walk along a beach, anywhere in the world, will reveal the consequences of our throwaway culture as each tide brings in a fresh layer of debris, most of it single-use plastics.
Over the past several months, the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) has been studying the issue of degradable additives and how the inclusion of these compounds in the manufacture of plastic items can impact their recyclability. Continue Reading