Tech giant HP recently spent $2 million to help improve infrastructure for recovering plastics at risk of entering the ocean. The investment is expected to create jobs in an impoverished area and move more material into the recycling stream.
Geneva, Switzerland
The scrap plastic trade will receive focus this week in Switzerland, where countries are meeting to discuss and consider amending global waste regulations.
An initiative that collects hard-to-recycle packaging from the curb in several cities could be extended to another 100,000 households by the end of this year, a plastics executive said.
Scrap plastic shipments from the U.S. declined from 122 million pounds in January to 120 million pounds in February. That February volume was the lowest single month of plastic exports since December 2003.
Scrap plastic traders continue to circumvent import restrictions in one Southeast Asian country by labeling recovered plastic as another type of commodity.
The price of natural HDPE has continued to drop and now sits well below its position a year ago, but recovered PET values have remained constant.
Last year, 45 producers reported selling plastic beverage containers to California consumers. Of those businesses, 13 said their bottles incorporated some amount of recycled plastic.
GreenBlue’s Laura Thompson presents at SPC Impact.
Hundreds of packaging stakeholders came together last week in Seattle to talk sustainability. And recycling factored into the conversation in a number of ways.
The Vietnamese government has reiterated its plan to phase out scrap plastic imports altogether, noting all scrap plastic will be barred beginning in 2025.