The increase marks the end of a years-long slide in the country’s PET bottle recovery rate, which had been falling since 2017. | New Africa/Shutterstock
The U.S. PET bottle recovery rate made a notable jump last year, reaching 28.6%, according to an industry report published today.
More than 130 California cities now have PS bans, including San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland. | Justinboat.29/Shutterstock
Los Angeles banned expanded polystyrene after a unanimous Dec. 6 vote by the 12 city council members present, following the lead of other California cities.
Compared with recent months, December has brought stable prices across the range of scrap plastics, with PET and natural HDPE bale prices rising only slightly.
The Keycycle deinking technology. | Courtesy of EREMA
A technology to use supercritical carbon dioxide to decontaminate scrap plastics received a big financial boost, and major equipment suppliers made some scrap deinking announcements. The following are recent mechanical recycling technology announcements.
Two EverestLabs robots pick out material on the Sunset Park MRF’s last-chance line. | Courtesy of EverestLabs
Sims Municipal Recycling installed four EverestLabs robots in its New York City materials recovery facility and plans to add up to four more in 2023, bringing the facility into the AI age.
The meeting was the first to work on drafting the text of the Global Plastics Treaty, which is intended to be a legally binding document addressing plastic pollution across the value chain. | Courtesy of UNEP
Mixed reactions followed the first meeting on a Global Plastics Treaty, with some complaints about “industry interference.”
Michael Zamora, senior vice president of Product Solutions at ExxonMobil, and Ron Delia, CEO at Amcor, signed the agreement, through which ExxonMobil will sell increasing amounts of recycled resin each year to Amcor. | Courtesy of Amcor
One of the world’s largest packaging producers, Amcor, has signed a deal to buy huge amounts of chemically recycled resin from one of the world’s largest plastics producers, ExxonMobil.
The REMADE Institute-funded research found that, over the course of their full life cycles, several common polymers account for about 1.5% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. | rochariberio/Shuttestock
By the time plastic products reach their end of life, the bulk of their climate damage has already been done, according to a study that reaffirms greenhouse gasses tied to plastics are mostly generated in prime resin production, shipping and molding.
The new act is built on the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, which was introduced in the last two Congressional sessions but failed to move forward. | Rob Crandall/Shutterstock
A newly introduced bill in Congress is reviving parts of the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, with a focus on environmental justice.