Jenna Jambeck was the keynote at this year’s Resource Recycling Conference and Trade Show, held in late summer. | Resource Recycling Conference/Brian Adams Photography
The statistic has taken on almost household familiarity: 91% of plastic ever created has not been recycled, and a massive amount has become litter. Jenna Jambeck, a researcher who helped formulate that number, recently spoke about solutions to the pollution problem.
Fiji Water announced it will introduce a 2.5-gallon boxed water option for the refrigerator or counter. | Courtesy of Fiji Water
Fiji Water announced it will boost the recycled content in its PET water bottles. The company also released boxed-water options to reduce plastics usage.
Around 50% of box manufacturer U.S. Corrugated’s total paper sourcing comes from post-consumer materials. | John McLenaghan/Shutterstock
U.S. Corrugated, a box manufacturer that uses recovered fiber, is opening a “super plant” in Indiana in coming months, with more new capacity coming in the future.
A report identified 142 businesses in the Northeast that are processing or using post-consumer materials.| pokku/Shutterstock
Two industry organizations have developed directories of manufacturers that consume recycled materials in one region of the U.S.
Among the bills Governor Newsom signed is one which prohibits hotels from providing plastic single-use shampoo, conditioner and lotion bottles. | Susanne Pommer/Shutterstock
California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation forcing beverage companies to use increasingly higher percentages of recycled plastic in coming years, but he signed other bills of consequence.
UBQ currently operates in Israel but is eyeing Virginia as a possible location for a large-scale facility. | Courtesy of UBQ Materials
A nascent company that makes a composite material from the non-recycled waste stream is looking to site a processing plant in the U.S.
The price of natural HDPE has skyrocketed over the past month, roughly doubling in some areas to a high of 52 cents per pound. Color HDPE also took a notable jump.
The city of Boise rolled out the EnergyBag program in 2018. | Aleksandr Grechanyuk/Shutterstock
The Hefty EnergyBag program is collecting but not currently processing hard-to-recycle plastics in Boise, Idaho. The program’s downstream processor suspended EnergyBag processing earlier this year to install new equipment.
