Category Archives: PET Plastic

PET Plastic

More Bag Bans In California

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More and more cities and towns throughout the state of California are adopting single-use plastic bag bans and the latest municipality to approve such a rule is Redwood City. Earlier this week the city council vote to approve a city wide ordinance that would ban all plastic bag use in retail businesses and would encourage restaurants to impose a fee for food take-out bags.

Retail businesses operating within the city have the choice to offer customers recycled bags made of paper or reusable plastic bags at a cost of ten cents a piece. After January 1, 2015, the required cost will increase to twenty five cents per bag. Patrons who receive California food stamps, welfare, or food assistance programs are exempt from having to pay the fees.

Store owners must show the bag charges on all customer receipts and maintain a record of all bags sold. Store owners who do not follow the regulation can be given a fine from one hundred to five hundred dollars depending on frequency and severity of the violation.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: As more communities embrace plastic bag bans it’s important for businesses that currently use them to start to formulate alternate plans. Instead of trying to fight “city hall” use a possible ban as a way to find cheaper, alternative solutions that will also be environmentally friendly. Be a leader in your community instead of someone scrambling at the last minute trying to follow!

 

 

Opportunities Increase With Rigid Plastics Recycling

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Last year, the recycling of rigid plastic materials (not counting bottles) increased by thirteen percent in the United States to a level of almost nine hundred and fifty million pounds. This increase was contributed to consumers’ ability to recycle these materials within their residential and business communities which has now reached an all time high of fifty seven percent nationwide.

There are over fourteen hundred cities in the US that collect recycling for rigid plastic which includes items such as cups, containers, and trays made of both PET and HDPE plastics. For those cities that offer recycling of these items, the personal recycling rate tops sixty percent.

Popular and in-demand uses for recycled rigid plastic includes the manufacturing of buckets, pipes, auto products, food storage containers, crates, kitchen tools, and other housewares.  The growth of “green” storage products, tools, and furniture has continued to grow as individual and business consumers are presented with more buying options and prices comparable to similar items not classified as environmentally friendly. Increased recycling rates mean more available materials for manufacturers which translates to lower production and pricing costs.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Increasing recycling rates is a win-win situation for everyone. Recycling more at home or work cuts down on your waste disposal costs and in turn make recyclable materials, like rigid plastic, more readily available to manufacturers who can then produce, at a lower cost, the items we need for work, school, and recreation. Going green is a winning proposition!

 

New Mexico Town Trades Bags For Benches

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In a new partnership between residents of Las Cruces, New Mexico and the outdoor furnishings manufacturer Trex Company, a collection of unwanted and used plastic bags is underway to help defray the cost of new benches for the city’s parks and recreation areas.

Trex, which makes furniture made of wood alternatives such as plastic, is sponsoring the collection effort which will run through the spring and summer. Local businesses and residents will be able to drop off and recycle a variety of plastic bags including department and grocery bags, plastic bags for food, newspapers, laundry and dry cleaning, as well as bubble wrap and plastic bags used for packing and shipping. For every thirty thousand bags collected, Trex will provide one all-weather park bench made from their alternative materials formula.

City officials are enthusiastic and claim growing participation and support from members of the community, including local businesses as it’s a low cost way to enhance the city’s parks and overall quality of life for residents and visitors. Due to budget cutbacks, the city would be unable to fund upgrades to the existing benches or acquire additional ones. By galvanizing community involvement, the city is both able to promote recycling while obtaining some much desired outdoor seating.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Are your elected officials for your local government thinking outside the box when it comes to waste management and recycling? If your town has a public park or green space, how is its upkeep being funded? A plastic bag collection initiative might be a great way to cut costs!

 

Plastic Film Recycling Sees Increases

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According to a recent report released by the American Chemistry Council, in 2011, one billion pounds of light weight plastic film and bags were recycled in the United States. That amount represents a four percent increase from the prior year and a fifty five percent increase from 2005.

Increases in consumer demand and manufacturer production of plastic and plastic-composite decking and building materials is cited as a reason for increased collection and recycling efforts. Deck and siding manufacturers bought and additional one hundred and twenty million pounds of recycled plastic material in 2011 and that amount is expected to see year over year growth as the construction industry embraces green building practices.

While the majority of plastics collected is processed in the United States or Canada, almost forty percent is still process oversees. There are more than fifteen thousand collection locations in the United States, mainly in retail and grocery chains, where polyethylene bags can be recycled. This number is expected to increase as more consumers demand convenient recycling options.

The report also speculates that the biggest future growth is to be found in the recycling of pre-consumer clear plastic such as shrink wrap which is highly desirable on the re-sale market but has been difficult to collect.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Remember that old-time saying, “The future is in plastics”? The same holds true today, expect we need to change it to say, “The future is in recycling plastics”! If your business uses or manufactures plastics, staying in the know about recycling and re-selling is essential.

Plastic Water Bottle Recycling Rate Increases

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It has recently been announced by the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) and the National Association for PET Container Resources that the national recycling rate of single-use PET bottles increased almost twenty percent in the last year.

In 2011, plastic water bottles had a thirty nine percent rate of being recycled in the United States. That was an increase from the 2011 recycling rate of thirty two percent. In 2011, five hundred million pounds of plastic water bottles were recycled from the nearly one and a half billion pounds that had been purchased.

It has also been noted that the overall weight of single-serve plastic bottles has dropped to just under ten grams meaning that less plastic is involved in the manufacturing. While these containers make up a very small sub-section of the overall waste stream produced in the United States (less than one third of one percent), representatives from the IBWA stress that all bottled water plastic containers are one hundred percent recyclable.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Does your business sell PET plastic beverages to customers or employees? Make sure you do your part of encouraging recycling by having separate bins to collect these. For ever water or drink bottle that ends up in the trash, that’s more you have to pay for waste disposal!

New Business Ideas for Recycled eWaste

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If you’re thinking the uses for recycled electronics waste are pretty small, think again! Two Texas businesses are taking unwanted and unusable e-Waste and turning it into something you see every single day – street signs! MicroStrate Inc. and Image Microsystems Inc. have joined forces and are are using recycled plastics and electronics waste to produce street signs. Even with their new operations, they already have sold their new products to four different cities in the United States and one city in Russia.

Currently employing close to fifty, the facility is expecting to run twenty four hour shifts within the year as interest in their product builds momentum. There has been great interest expressed in the product from state departments of transportation to test and purchase these “zero waste” signs.

The company handles both the recycling of the plastics and electronics waste and the manufacturing of the signs at their facility. Keeping all work in-house has reduced costs from purchasing through a recycled goods re-seller. The company also has a materials research project involving students from Texas Technical.

For now, regional electronics retail stores and computer companies provide much of the materials needed, but as business expands that footprint is expected to grow as well.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Thinking outside the box is what makes for success in the recycled material business. If you’re not an entrepreneur, but looking to sell your waste materials instead of paying to dispose of them in the trash, there are new businesses that may be interested in working with you!

Increasing Plastics Recycling

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The state of Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is investigating how they can improve their rate of recycling for waste plastics materials. Currently, it is believed that over sixty four million dollars worth of plastics is being disposed of in local landfills.

The study is being done to see what areas in the recycling sector can contribute to job growth and economic development for the state. So far, the greatest potential lies with recycling waste plastic bags and lightweight plastic film used in packaging, in addition to hard plastics. Due to the preliminary findings, the DNR is preparing to launch a test program for recycling lightweight plastic film packaging materials.

DNR officials believe that by increasing recycling throughout the state, municipalities will be better positioned to create new jobs and business opportunities in the “green sector” as well as reduce their fees for maintaining costly landfills.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: The recycling market is always changing. Waste materials that once had little or no value are now in demand on the recyclable materials manufacturing market. Plastics of all kinds can be used to create a huge number of building, construction, housewares, and personal products, so if you’re community or business isn’t recycling them then you’re missing out on reducing your garbage disposal fees and possibly making money by re-selling!

Hawaii Starts Plastic Bag Ban

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The big island of Hawaii has instituted a law that will gradually ban plastic bags. The new policy went into effect on January 17, 2013 and was announced by the Department of Environmental Management for the County of Hawai’i.

Under the new policy, all businesses located on the island are required to charge a small fee for single use plastic carryout bags. Businesses included in this mandate are grocery stores, retailers, restaurants, and farmer’s markets. The law provides businesses a year to transition into the new procedure and all single use plastic bags will be completely prohibited from the island by January 17, 2014.

There are a few exemptions and those include plastic bags used for meat, fish, bulk produce such as nuts and grains, fresh produce such as fruits and vegetables, small hardware items, clothing, and prescription drugs.

City Council representatives said the measure was essential to protect the beauty and environmental sustainability of the island which has limited landfill resources.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: As more and more municipalities adopt plastic bag bans and regulations, your business would be well-served by coming up with strategies to address plastic bag usage before it is regulated. If you start now, you’ll be steps ahead of the competition!

Demand For Recycled Plastic Rises

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It is expected that the demand from manufacturers for recycled plastic will rise close to seven percent by the year 2016 with a need for over three and one half billion pounds of material.

This amount is nearly one billion pounds more than what was needed in 2012 and is due to the growing demand for sustainable and environmentally friendly packaging and consumer products. In addition, technologically advanced recycling processing and sorting machinery allows recyclers to identify and use more types of plastic resin products.

Continued efforts from federal, state and municipal governments to cut costs by increasing recycling efforts while limiting of charging more for landfill dumping of trash will also assist in ensuring that the demand for recycled plastic is met with an adequate and affordable supply.

Using recycled plastic for packaging will be the primary market for re-sellers and recyclers with plastic bottles being responsible for providing close to half of the demand. In 2011, PET and HDPE plastics were responsible for filling close to seventy percent of the market need. Business and consumer sectors that currently use minimal recycled plastic but could experience growth are construction products, packaging film, and the automotive industry.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: The business and consumer demand for recycled plastics isn’t going away. Looking for new ways to satisfy this need in your sector is a great way to make green while supporting green initiatives like recycling!

 

 

More Cities Ban Single Use Bags

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Brookline, Massachusetts is the eighty-fifth municipality in the United States and the forty-seventh in 2012 to enact a ban against single-use plastic bags.

Brookline is part of the metro-Boston area and home to sixty thousand residents. The community now has regulations against the use of polystyrene-based food and beverage containers and plastic bags. Both bans will go into effect on December 1, 2013 providing area merchants and restaurants a year to plan.

The new rulings will apply to grocery stores with sales over one million annually, drug stores with two or more locations in the city, and retail businesses with more than twenty five hundred square feet of space in either one of multiple locations throughout the city.

The ruling excluded compostable or marine degradable plastic bags or bags used in the packaging of produce.

Brookline joins a growing number of cities with plastic bag bans including: San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon. More than half of these new regulations have been voted on and approved in the past year indicating a clear trend in community leadership that reduction in the use of plastic bags is necessary.

WasteCare Wants You to Remember: Even if your community hasn’t enacted a plastic bag ban, if your businesses uses these materials, it’s time to start thinking about alternatives! You may find that adopting greener solutions will help to reduce your overall waste trash disposal fees.