Researchers explore fluorescence to advance food- and drink-container sortation, and an advanced films manufacturer begins closed-loop recycling with customers’ materials.
A major retailer agrees to look for alternatives to EPS foam packaging, and Greenpeace once again hammers Coca-Cola over end-of-life plastics.
Cody Marshall, The Recycling Partnership
The State of Curbside Recycling Report offered one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of the factors affecting municipal collection. The lead researcher for the study discusses some of the statistics and surprises (see related story).
Another county has joined the WRAP (Wrap Recycling Action Program) initiative, an effort by the Flexible Film Recycling Group of the American Chemistry Council to collect more plastic bags and film at local stores.
An improvement in virgin feedstocks allows better performance in recycled-content HDPE products, and two companies cooperate to supply a continuous PET-to-textile-fibers line.
Plastics stakeholders in the U.K. continue to argue about whether oxo-biodegradable polymers are detrimental to recycling.
Retailers collecting select polyethylene bags for recycling worry that accepting other types of PE film will open the door to contamination.
NASA plans to experiment with interstellar plastics recycling, and a town in British Columbia says a fee on bags is successfully deterring residents from using the products.
Leading executives involved in European plastics recycling convened in Portugal in mid-June to address the current state of affairs and to look into the future of the industry.
South Africa recycled more total plastic in 2015 than the year before, but the country’s plastics diversion rate dropped and plastics recycling companies struggled.