Plastics are everywhere! They are essential in today&#;s world for purposes from sanitation in healthcare, to convenience in food service, and affordability of materials and furnishings that we use in our homes, offices and schools. Yet plastics also present a formidable environmental challenge, using precious natural resources in their fabrication and often disposed of in ways that negatively impact our ecosystem.
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Fortunately, as we shift toward a circular economy, plastics recycling is growing. According to Statista, global plastic production has grown from 1.5 million metric tons in to 359 billion metric tons in . Essential to the preservation of our planet, recycling plastic is fundamental to our efforts to reduce waste, halt climate change and preserve our planet for generations to come.
In honor of the growing movement to recycle plastics, we&#;re presenting a list of seven things you may not know about recycled plastic. We hope this information will pique interest, expand awareness and inspire action.
1. Businesses engage in plastics recycling
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation spearheads the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, uniting businesses, governments and other stakeholders in an ambitious movement to reduce plastic waste and pollution. This program includes approximately 400 organizations, including more than 200 businesses from across all stages of the value chain, representing more than 20% of all plastic packaging used globally. According to their progress report, 36% of the participating packaged goods companies are currently engaged in testing and piloting business models that reuse plastics.
2. Consumers demand recycled plastic
According to a survey from Accenture, 83% of consumer respondents found it important or extremely important that companies design products that are meant to be reused or recycled. In addition, 77% on respondents indicated that plastics were the least environmentally friendly type of packaging. Recycling could help change that perception. For manufacturers, this insight provides a clear indication that the market demands sustainable solutions.
3. Regulations are changing the landscape
China&#;s implementation of the Blue Sky/National Sword policy (also known as the Green Sword policy) in early instigated changes in the way the globe thinks about plastic waste. For 20 years prior, China had imported recyclable materials from around the world, but in , China&#;s Ministry of Environmental Protection restricted the import of dozens of categories of recyclable materials, including many types of plastic waste. Demand for recycled plastics, new plastic recycling facilities and reduced waste have all come to the forefront. This comes simultaneously with other legislation, such as one-third of the EU member countries placing restrictions and recycling mandates on manufacturers of single-use plastics. These changes will encourage increased recycling of plastics, as destinations accepting waste dwindle.
4. Plastics recycling can divert ocean-bound plastics from waterways
According to the Ocean Conservancy, an estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic enter our oceans every year. Projections suggest that if we don&#;t act now, there could be 1 pound of plastic for every 3 pounds of fish in the ocean within the next decade. An important step in reducing plastic in our oceans is to collect and divert ocean-bound plastics to recycling facilities, preventing it from entering our waterways. New verification standards like the UL Standard for Environmental Claim Validation Procedure (ECVP) for Recycled Content verify the amount of ocean-bound plastic used in products.
5. The difference between pre- and post-consumer recycled content
Recycled plastic has many sources. Pre-consumer recycled content is material that has reached its intended end user and is no longer being used for its intended purposes. Post-consumer waste may be generated from things like plastic bottles and food containers after the contents have been consumed or a cell that has been used and thrown out after years of use.
Pre-consumer (post-industrial) recycled content is material diverted from the waste stream during a manufacturing process that has never reached an end user. Examples may include trimmings from plastic packaging when manufactured or plastic toys rejected by quality control that never reach the consumer.
Both types of recycled content divert waste from the landfill and can serve as acceptable sources of recycled plastic content.
6. Recycled plastic can be verified for safety and performance
UL is at the forefront of efforts to provide a range of objective mechanisms used across the entire plastics value chain to verify the quality, safety and sustainability of recycled plastics so manufacturers, brand owners and end users feel confident in the performance and credibility of the materials. For example, UL 746D, the Standard for Polymeric Materials &#; Fabricated Parts (Ed. 8), evaluates plastics with recycled content for compliance with UL safety Standards. UL also offers a Plastics Testing and Certification Program (Yellow Card), which tests plastics for compliance with applicable regulatory standards, as well as for conformity with the performance requirements.
7. You can calculate recycled plastic
It may seem as though it would be nearly impossible to effectively calculate the amount of recycled plastic used in goods. After all, how is it possible to verify that the plastic used in a product was actually part of what is now a blended melt of polymers or liquid resin? It&#;s simply impossible to distinguish chemically recycled content from new plastic. In response, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and UL established a process called the mass balance accounting method to track volume through a production system and account for the amount of recycled plastic used in the final product. If you&#;d like to discover how it works, read Mass Balance: A New Approach to Calculating Recycled Content.
As we continue to shift to a more circular economy, manufacturers can begin outlining plans for increasing their use of recycled materials. View UL's recycled plastics solutions or contact UL for assistance defining next steps.
Last Updated on February 12,
There&#;s a lot of discourse in the zero waste community about recycled plastic. When I first started going zero waste, both literally and the blog, I hyper focused on plastic in a big way. I wanted to live a completely plastic free lifestyle, even a lifestyle free of recycled plastic, but then I started learning a lot more about recycled plastic materials, emissions, and looking at the bigger picture.
Recycled plastic products definitely have their place in a sustainable lifestyle. Recycled plastic material is much more eco friendly than sourcing raw materials. Buying products made of eco friendly plastic is convenient for consumers looking to reduce their waste without having to commit to completely reusable items. So what can plastic be recycled into? Read on to find out!
This post was sponsored by Rhyme & Reason. All thoughts and opinions are my own. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.
recycled plastic productsOne of my favorite things about sustainability is that it&#;s nuanced. It feels like I can learn something new each day as science evolves and as I continue to learn more.
After doing quite a bit of research into raw materials, what I&#;ve found is that recycled content really is way more eco-friendly than virgin materials. Yep, even recycled plastics.
For example, Rhyme & Reason is a hair care brand that really pushes the boundaries when it comes to sustainability. They offer hair care products in 100% post consumer recycled materials &#; including the cap (a world first). They went with a plastic bottle so it could be squeezed to avoid the need for a pump.
Pumps are made from so many different materials that they&#;re unrecyclable. By opting for recycled plastic products, they were able to mold their bottles into rectangles. The square shape makes the pack 20% more space efficient than a round bottle, helping to reduce emissions from transport.
why I support recycled plastics:There is so much plastic in the world &#; we should be turning it into something. In fact, we shouldn&#;t be using any virgin plastic! After all, the most eco friendly plastic is the one that already exists.
And if we&#;re going to complain about only 9% of plastics ever being recycled, then wouldn&#;t we want to support people who&#;re working to boost that number?
The fact is when it comes to emissions, plastic is lighter to ship than glass and way more eco-friendly than strip mining for metals. My friend Shelbi did a great YouTube video on this where you can learn more.
facts on recycled plastics:Recycling is cost effective and good for the environment because it conserves the fossil fuel (aka crude oil) used to manufacture it.
Resource extraction for virgin plastic materials has an incredibly high carbon footprint. For plastic, most of it is derived from oil drilling and/or fracking.
Ethane cracker facilities turn ethane into ethylene, a building block in most common plastics. However, these facilities are associated with major climate detriments.
When we use recycled plastic, we cut down on the amount of crude oil that needs to be extracted from the earth unsustainably.
In fact, according to the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR), using recycled plastic products reduces energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The report looks at three resins &#; PET, HDPE, and PP &#; and it concludes that recycled plastic reduced total energy consumption by 79% for PET, 88% for HDPE, and 88% for PP.
Recycled resin also cut emissions over virgin material by 67% for PET, 71% for HDPE, and 71% for PP. Imagine how many emissions we&#;d save if every product was forced to use 100% recycled content.
Also, recycling saves water. This is because the extraction of virgin raw materials and manufacturing them into single use items uses up water. Recycling reduces the need for materials, thus creating a smaller water footprint.
For more Recycled Plastic Productsinformation, please contact us. We will provide professional answers.
what are the problems with recycling plastic?Is recycled plastic without its faults? Of course not. But neither is any material. One of the major problems is how many types of plastic there are. Unlike glass or aluminum, there are seven main types of plastic (and even more beyond that), which makes recycling all of them difficult.
Only 9% of plastic gets recycled. This is due to several factors, but the first one is confusion on the part of the consumer. Consumers see the mobius symbol (the chasing arrows or recycle sign) and think, &#;I can recycle this&#; &#; or they simply put it in the recycling bin because they&#;re wishcycling. More on that in a bit.
the main problems with recycling plastic:The plastics that have the best chance of being recycled include polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE).
The most widely recycled plastic in the world is PET, which you may know by the resin identification code as #1. PET makes up water bottles, clear plastic cups, and some clear clamshells.
HDPE is accepted at most recycling centers in the world, as it&#;s one of the easiest plastic polymers to recycle. Milk jugs, shampoo bottles, and detergent bottles tend to be made from this material.
According to a report from Greenpeace, only PET and HDPE bottles and jugs meet the Federal Trade Commission&#;s (FTC) definition of recyclable. This doesn&#;t mean that PET and HDPE are always recycled. But it does mean there&#;s a higher demand for these materials in the market.
Plastics #3-#7 are a bit more complicated to recycle. Here&#;s what they are:
For more information, see my blog post on the 7 types of plastic you need to know.
plastic recycling myths:When I first started reducing plastics in my life, plastic was really only being &#;recycled&#; into things like park benches and speed bumps.
They were taking all 6 types of plastic, mixing them together, and mechanically recycling them into sturdy objects. This is how you get plastic #7 &#; it&#;s just a mix of everything. Once you hit that point, there&#;s really no going back.
But, recycling technology has improved A LOT. Now things are recycled by their individual numbers, either mechanically or chemically.
chemical recycling for truly eco friendly plasticChemical recycling still has a ways to go. However, it promises to bring the item back to its original form without any loss of quality &#; which would be pretty cool.
According to Colin O&#;Kell, a Technical Manager in Packaging at Rhyme & Reason: &#;Most plastic is currently mechanically recycled, which means old materials are ground up after sorting and cleaning, which damages the polymer chains and means plastic can only be recycled a limited amount of times.&#;
&#;With chemical recycling, the plastics are treated so they return to a plastic precursor substance that can then be processed back into plastic. There is now a new breakthrough technology called enzymatic recycling where the bonds within the plastics are dissolved with enzymes, leaving perfect polymer chains; this results in plastic that is as good as virgin plastic and makes plastic infinitely recyclable.&#; A truly eco friendly plastic!
what can plastic be recycled into?Now that we&#;ve established plastics actually CAN be recycled, what can plastic be recycled INTO? There&#;s a surprisingly wide array of products:
And that&#;s just the tip of the iceberg. With increases in technology, and the sheer amount of plastic we currently have in the waste stream, every product should be utilizing PCR.
rhyme & reason&#;s recycled plastic materialI think Rhyme & Reason is leading the way. They&#;re using 100% PCR and even developed the world&#;s first cap made from 100% recycled material. Since the bottle is pure plastic #2, you can put it in the recycling bin to be recycled over and over again.
I hope we see a lot more brands move in this direction.
According to Colin, &#;A big part of whether a material will be recycled is whether there is a use for the recycled material once it has been reprocessed. The lack of an end market for recycled materials has held up the development of a recycling infrastructure for polypropylene &#; the plastic used to make bottle caps. Because bottle caps are so complex, it&#;s much harder to make these out of recycled materials.&#;
&#;Then, because no one wants to use the recycled material, there&#;s no investment in the recycling infrastructure, so the material is low quality, making it harder to use and meaning no one wants to use it! It&#;s a vicious circle! That&#;s why it&#;s so important that the caps on Rhyme & Reason bottles are made with recycled PP. Rhyme & Reason has met the technical and supply challenges to bring something truly groundbreaking to the use of recycled materials. Hopefully, this will cause other brands to follow suit and kick start the circular supply chain by creating a demand for recycled PP.&#;
faqs what does chemical recycling promise for the future?Chemical recycling is so promising! It opens the door to recycling more difficult types of plastic, including multilayer and contaminated plastics. It will turn garbage into a valuable commodity and increase the demand for recycled plastics. This all benefits consumers and the environment in the long run!
what types of products can you get from rhyme & reason?Rhyme & Reason is a hair care company that sells high performance shampoos, conditioners, and curl products. You&#;ll also find finishing serums and plant protein repair serums! They&#;re also PETA certified cruelty free and vegan.
where can i buy rhyme & reason hair care products?To purchase, visit Rhyme & Reason&#;s site. From there, choose the product and follow the shoppable link. Depending on the product, you can purchase from Boots, Amazon, or Target. At this time, you cannot make purchases directly from their website.
Would you give Rhyme & Reason a shot? Let me know if you&#;ve tried their products before in the comments!
The company is the world’s best Post-Consumer Plastic Reuse supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.