Keurig Dr Pepper’s recent sustainability report noted progress toward the company’s goal of 25% PCR use by 2025. | Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock
One of North America’s largest beverage brand owners greatly increased its use of recycled resins last year, mainly by rolling out 100% RPET bottles for specific brands.
An industry coalition leader makes the case that lifting PET recovery rates will help improve recovery of other materials. | Billion Photos/Shutterstock
The three XP45 DeDusters that Pelletron sold to rPlanet Earth each have a capacity of 2 metric tons per hour. | Courtesy of Pelletron
Specialized equipment is reducing the presence of gels in rPlanet Earth’s RPET sheets, allowing the Southern California-based reclaimer to sell them for higher prices.
Recycling technologies from Erema, NGR, Polymetrix, Starlinger and others were recently approved to produce RPET for 100% recycled-content food and drink packaging. | Ho Su A Bi/Shutterstock
A food-safety panel has approved applications from Indorama Ventures, Veolia, Coca-Cola Hellenic, NOVAPET and other plastic reclaimers to recycle PET in new food and drink packaging.
Indorama Ventures developed its PET food tray recycling technology over the past six years. | Pavel Kapysh/Shutterstock
Indorama Ventures is moving into the commercial stage of a project in which post-consumer PET trays are recycled into flake used in food packaging.
Plastics recycling is drawing mainstream media attention in the wake of recent data showing low and declining recycling rates in the U.S. | lary_bird/Shutterstock
A recent report on plastic recycling rates from The Last Beach Clean Up and Beyond Plastics has attracted the attention of several large news outlets and the mainstream public, but industry leaders said the data is misleading and counter-productive.
An SEC fact-finding investigation into PP recycling startup PureCycle recently concluded without further action. | AevanStock/Shutterstock
PET recycling startup Loop Industries agreed to pay millions of dollars to settle a lawsuit from investors, and regulators have ended their investigation of PP recycling startup PureCycle Technologies without taking further action.
Cascades has invested over 30 million Canadian dollars into developing 100% RPET packaging. | Courtesy of Cascades
A couple of converters have rolled out notable recycled-plastic packaging innovations: an RPET food tray and a label-less RPET bottle.
Recycling equipment manufacturer Machinex provided improved sorting technologies for two Pratt single-stream MRFs. | Courtesy of Machinex
Pratt Industries may be primarily focused on recycling fiber into cardboard boxes, but with higher scrap plastics prices, the company also saw a business opportunity in boosting PET and HDPE bottle sorting.
The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) on April 14 released 2021 data on virgin and recycled plastic usage in beverage containers covered by the state’s deposit law. | Pazargic Liviu/Shutterstock
This story has been corrected.
Numbers for 2021 show some big beverage brands were ahead of the game when it comes to complying with California’s recycled-content law, including BlueTriton Brands, Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo. Others remained far short of the targets set by the state.