A bottle maker received money to help the company use more recycled glass, and a fiberglass insulation manufacturer increased its use of cullet last year. The following are recent headlines related to recovered glass end users.
A bottle maker received money to help the company use more recycled glass, and a fiberglass insulation manufacturer increased its use of cullet last year. The following are recent headlines related to recovered glass end users.
Timeline final update: March 22, 2022
The Alliance of Mission-Based Recyclers called plastics-to-fuel processes “false solutions,” though the group of nonprofit recyclers says it is more open to technologies that are geared toward production of recycled resin.
Solid waste and recycling worker fatalities dropped by nearly 50% in 2021, maintaining a downward trend that started in 2018.
Google published its latest plastic circularity report, finding that both chemical and mechanical recycling will be needed to close the “plastics circularity gap” by 2040. The tech giant also pointed to taxing virgin plastics to help reduce waste.
Interest in minimum-recycled-content mandates and extended producer responsibility bills is at an all-time high, but the reality of passing legislation is more complicated, according to industry experts.
March has brought surges in prices for several curbside recyclables, with PET containers up 24%, aluminum cans up 25%, color HDPE up 32% and polypropylene up 30%.
Scrap fiber exports to China collapsed in 2021, but the rest of the world more than made up the difference. Scrap plastics, however, continued their years-long decline in shipments.
For several years, lawmakers across the U.S. have been drafting policy to address concerns about ocean plastic. In Oregon, a key recycling labeling task force elected a representative from an ocean environmental group as vice chair.
Surging commodity prices drove markedly higher recycling revenues for the largest haulers in North America last year. Those companies say they’ll put a lot of money into upgrading their MRFs in 2022.