Nike, Target, Walmart and clothing manufacturer Polartec have been the biggest users of Unifi’s Repreve recycled polyester fabric.| Trong Nguyen/Shutterstock
More than 40 billion plastic bottles have been recycled into Unifi’s Repreve recycled polyester fabric over the past 17 years, the company announced this month, and a number of brands are leading the way in recycled fabric demand. Continue Reading
Brook + Whittle’s GreenLabel BlockOut product is a crystallizable shrink sleeve, which is used with de-inkable inks and a functional barrier coating. | Courtesy of Brook + Whittle
A Connecticut-based manufacturer of shrink sleeves and flexible packaging has secured a U.S. patent for a coating that both blocks light and works in the existing recycling system. Continue Reading
Emily Friedman of ICIS described several trends driving recycled resin markets in the U.S., during the 2024 Plastics Recycling Conference in Grapevine, Texas. | Big Wave Productions/Plastics Recycling Update
A long runup in recycled natural HDPE prices came to an end last summer, when prices plummeted to levels not seen since 2019. A market analyst with ICIS recently explained how this has become a trend in the plastics recycling market – and how the cycle is beginning again. Continue Reading
Rumpke’s new Columbus, Ohio MRF is key to a partnership with Eastman Chemical that will create an end market for opaque PET materials, among other hard-to-recycle products. | Courtesy of Rumpke
A partnership between midwest recycling processor Rumpke and resin giant Eastman Chemical will create an end market for opaque and otherwise hard-to-recycle PET materials, driven by state-of-the-art sortation capabilities at Rumpke’s Columbus, Ohio MRF.
Unifi recycled 38 billion plastic bottles in 2023. | Don Pablo/Shutterstock
Unifi’s recycled-content fiber line made up 30% of the company’s revenue in 2023, and the textile manufacturer is aiming for 50% in 2025. Continue Reading
Innocycle shreds and washes used PET cages at its California reclamation plant. | Photo courtesy Innocycle.
Innovive, a U.S. manufacturer of single-use plastic cages for mice and rats in laboratories, has scaled up its recycling operations in recent years, nearly doubling its annual processing capacity since 2020 and building an in-house reclamation center in Sacramento, California. Continue Reading
Coca‑Cola is running a small pilot program to see if engraving product information directly onto bottles could replace labels on drink bottles. | DenisMArt/Shutterstock
In a trial project aiming to simplify recycling and reduce the use of material, Coca‑Cola will temporarily remove labels from some Sprite go bottles in the UK and instead use label engraving. Continue Reading
Republic Services’s new Polymer Center will supply post-consumer PET flake to Circularix for use in food-grade recycled packaging. | Aykut Erdogdu/Shutterstock
Post-consumer PET packaging supplier Circularix will buy PET flake from new plastics processing facilities recently unveiled by Republic Services, one of the largest haulers in the U.S. Continue Reading
ALPLA Group processed 386,000 short tons of recycled resin in-house in 2023, double what it processed two years prior, and more investments are planned. | Alenka2194/Shutterstock
Global packaging giant ALPLA Group says it is ramping up its processing of recycled PET and HDPE as it nears a target year for its voluntary recycled content goals. 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.