How Plastic recycling is affecting the Environment

July 27, 2009 · Filed under Consulting

How plastic recycling is affecting the Environment

The recycling industry that has been growing for the last 30 years, was hit hard as did all the other industries by the economic turndown, due to the decrease demand from China, the good news is that it is on its way to balance itself out.

Recycled plastics have stayed in demand as they do a better job for less money than other materials. Also new technologies can better recover polymers from plastic now.

Some companies are starting to recover value from what we call “Unusable plastic” by separating plastic mixed together, of different colors, mixed with non-plastic material, and from contaminants.

Another form of plastic that was hard to recycle is the “Rigid Plastic” like the peanut butter containers, pallets, crates, 5-gallon buckets, or the Bleach bottles, they are molded plastic packages that maintain their shapes even when they are empty.  Rigid plastics as all plastic materials are broken down by resins and categorized as single or mixed resins. 44% of rigid plastics are made from polyethylene, while 38% are polypropylene.

The good news is that nowadays, 28 of the 100 largest cities in the U.S. mostly in the West Coast collect rigid plastics in their curbside programs, 12 collect only all bottles and containers, and 16 collect all kinds of rigid plastics like toys.

Plastic recycling is based on a resin identification code which made it complicated for normal consumers like you and me to understand and that is why it is receding from the world of plastic recycling, and is shifting to all what we have to know is that our plastic products or packages can be recycled as in many communities like the District of Columbia and three major surrounding areas: Arlington County, Va., Montgomery County, Md. and Anne Arundel County, Md. Many cities and towns in California are also adopting this method of collection, almost 60 percent of California’s collection programs accept “all bottles and household containers.”

Sutter Homes Winery is now using PET bottlesfor all of its 187-mL wine bottles sold in the U.S, they are using it for all wines that to be consumed within 1 year because of the oxidation factor being in a plastic bottle, the company expects to cut greenhouse gas emissions over the life of the bottle by 29 percent, as PET bottles use less greenhouse emissions due to their light weight.  The Foster’s Group based in Australia is thinking as well to do the same shift from glass bottles to plastic bottles

One of the amazing stories about using the recycled plastic is the New Jersey Pine Barrens 56-foot-long bridge totally built from recycled plastic, its lifespan is expected to be 40 years and it can support 36 tons.  Plastic lumber is actually one of the more common products created from recycled PET, the material used for most plastic bottles, recycled plastic has been molded to beams obviously lighter and more flexible than the wood ones which reduces the ecological footprint, while using less energy in manufacture.

The more the recycling process is simple the more people will use their recycle bins more and more, so please recycle as much as you can, we can build strong bridges from recycled materials and who knows what else in the near future.  Help save the planet

 Cheers,

Sahar Andrade

www.linkedin.com/in/saharandrade

www.saharconsulting.com