State houses across the country are seeing bills filed that center on plastics and recycling. | Zolnierek/Shutterstock
The 2024 legislative season is in full swing, with dozens of bills filed so far on extended producer responsibility for packaging and regulation of plastic products. Continue Reading
The new system creates a hierarchy within the PET payments to pay more for certain types of manufacturing and processing. | Korn9/Shutterstock
A long-running post-consumer plastic market development program in California has been modified to further incentivize PET container recycling.
Illinois stakeholders have been workshopping a beverage container deposit return system under Senate Bill 85. | alenka2194/Shutterstock
Illinois may or may not be the next state to pass a bill setting up a beverage container deposit return system under Senate Bill 85, and industry players recently debated the benefits and concerns around the bill.
A local producer of 100% recycled PET water bottles is bringing in-state bottle processing capacity to Hawaii. | Courtesy of Waiākea Water
Waiākea Inc., a producer of 100% recycled PET bottles for water sourced from an active volcano, is installing bottle-to-bottle processing equipment at its Hilo, Hawaii facility with a planned capacity of 52 million pounds per year. Continue Reading
A handful of states have modernized their bottle bills in recent years, and pressure to enact programs in non-bottle-bill states appears to be growing, according to panelists on a recent webinar. | Monticello/Shutterstock
Deposit return systems are poised to take center legislative stage in the coming years, with strong potential benefits for the environment and economy, the Container Recycling Institute noted in a recent analysis and webinar. Continue Reading
Of the nine states for which data is available, only two showed meaningful increases in their container redemption rates. | Poring Studio/Shutterstock
Most states with deposit return systems saw static or reduced bottle redemption rates in 2022, according to a deposit advocacy organization. Continue Reading
The Container Recycling Institute and Reloop released a study showing that deposit return systems do not have a negative effect on beverage sales. | Zety Akhzar/Shutterstock
A study looking at two decades of beverage sale trends around the world found that there was no decrease in sales when deposit return systems went into effect or were expanded. Continue Reading
Deposit containers collected in Oregon at the OBRC sorting facility outside Portland. | Dan Leif/Resource Recycling
Oregon residents turned in over 2 billion beverage containers in 2022, an 88.5% preliminary redemption rate for one of the country’s most successful bottle and can redemption systems. Continue Reading
Amid lower PET bale prices, CalRecycle aims to offset costs for plastics recyclers. | Nixx Photography/Shutterstock
California regulators will double the subsidy paid to PET recycling companies, citing the lower prices that bottle bales are fetching on the market.
SB 353 aims to protect recycling companies from severe market fluctuations, which have been a factor in many closures. | Susanne Pommer/Shutterstock
A newly introduced bill in the California Senate would adjust how state regulators calculate the amount of money paid to bottle and can recycling businesses, helping those companies avoid steep financial losses when scrap values plummet.
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