Leaders outlined the challenges and opportunities of recycled content mandates at a recent conference. | zombiemaster/Shutterstock
Policymakers and brand owners have recently emphasized boosting recycled content in plastic packaging to try to enhance recycling. At a conference this week, speakers outlined some of the challenges in this realm.
Speakers in a session last week came from two often-opposing sides of the packaging and recycling debate: Craig Cookson of ACC and Kate Bailey from Eco-Cycle. | Screenshot from the 2021 Plastics Recycling Conference.
Last week’s Plastics Recycling Conference, held online, featured eight sessions over two days. Here are some of the talking points that caught our team’s attention.
NERC’s Next Generation Scholarship Fund is just one of multiple conversations the group is having on the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion. | Lightspring/Shutterstock
Leaders at the Northeast Recycling Council recently explained how they’ll use a new scholarship fund to help boost racial diversity in the next generation of recycling industry professionals.
Plastics recycling stakeholders will gather online this week for insight and networking. | DC Studio/Shutterstock
Hundreds of plastics recycling and sustainability professionals are taking part in this week’s virtual Plastics Recycling Conference, which is offering discussions on policy, markets and more at a time of sector uncertainty.
The U.S. EPA is considering changing the calculation methodology for determining the nation’s recycling rate. | Rokas Tenys/Shutterstock
If a process breaks down scrap plastics into chemicals that are later used to make new plastic, should the federal government consider that “recycling?” What if the end product is a fuel that is combusted?
One million dollars in grants will go to pay for PP sorting equipment and efforts to communicate to households that PP is accepted in their curbside programs. | Courtesy of KW Plastics.
Materials recovery facilities in Minnesota, North Carolina and Texas will receive financial support to enable PP recovery.
Chemical recycling processes are specifically excluded from the definition of “recycling” under the recently introduced Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act. | Andriy Blokhin/Shutterstock
Legislation that makes sweeping changes to the U.S. plastics recycling system generated quick opposition from industry groups, with plastics industry representatives focused on the bill’s treatment of certain materials recovery processes.
Unilever uses about 118,000 metric tons of plastic packaging in North America each year, half of which is post-consumer resin. | Peter Bueno/Shutterstock
Unilever North America will invest $15 million in the Closed Loop Partners Leadership Fund, a private equity platform that helps grow companies in the recycling value chain.
As part of the pilot project, Magnomer’s magnetizable inks were printed on shrink labels in collaboration with American Fuji Seal. | Courtesy of Magnomer
A startup that supplies an ink allowing shrink sleeve labels to be separated from PET flakes with a magnet has successfully completed early testing of the innovation.
Procter & Gamble noted that it now has 12 packages and technologies certified for recyclability by RecyClass. | Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock
RecyClass has now certified the recyclability of a dozen packaging innovations from Procter & Gamble.