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PET bottle recycling rate, volume rise
By Steve Toloken, PLASTICS NEWS STAFF
SONOMA, CALIF. (Sept. 30, 1:50 p.m. EDT) -- The PET bottle recycling rate rose in 2004, going up for the first time in nearly a decade.
The rate rose to 21.6 percent in 2004, up from 19.6 percent the previous year, and the amount of PET bottles collected for recycling jumped dramatically to a little more than 1 billion pounds, according to a Sept. 29 report from the National Association for PET Container Resources.
The Sonoma, Calif.-based trade group pointed to a number of factors for the reversal of fortunes for PET recycling: increased demand, especially in the carpet industry, more pressure from government in California to use recycled plastic in containers and a better competitive position with virgin materials.
“The biggest news is the amount of PET collected jumped significantly, which is a good sign, and it looks like we’re going to be able to maintain that,” said NAPCOR Chairman Gerry Claes. “The other side of the coin is that demand for PET continues to grow.”
Environmental groups said the increased recycling rate should be put in perspective: It’s still well below the PET industry’s high-water mark of 39.7 percent in 1995, and it means four of five containers were thrown out, said Jenny Gitlitz, a senior research associate with the Container Recycling Institute in Arlington, Va.
NAPCOR’s numbers show that 160 million more pounds of PET was recycled in 2004, but conversely, the growth of PET packaging to 4.6 billion pounds meant that 183 million more pounds of PET bottles were thrown away last year.
“Is that progress?” Gitlitz asked.
NAPCOR reported that a record level of PET was collected — 1.003 billion pounds, or 19 percent more than 2003, which was also a record. That’s a much faster rise than the 8 percent growth in general PET use in the bottle market, the first time that’s happened since at least 1995.
Except for last year, the PET recycled industry had been dogged by a familiar story. The use of PET packaging soared in things like 20-ounce soft drink bottles, water bottles and specialty containers, but recycling remained flat or declined.
NAPCOR pointed to several factors in the growth in collection last year:
- New York returning to collecting plastic in its city recycling programs.
- Materials-recovery facilities installing better equipment to sort plastic bottles.
- California increasing the value of its container deposits.
- Other factors like growth in PET, previously unreported export volumes sold domestically and new commercial volumes from increased scrap sales.
NAPCOR Chairman Gerald Claes said California and New York City were the biggest reasons why more PET was collected.
CRI’s Gitlitz said her group is “pleased that NAPCOR has acknowledged the additional PET recycling” that came from California increasing its container deposits. CRI supports bottle bills.
Industry groups like NAPCOR traditionally oppose bottle bills. Gitlitz said CRI calculations show 30 percent of the increase in PET collected in 2004 in the United States came from California.
As in previous years, the report showed strong growth in exports, with Chinese and Canadian companies buying more. The report also showed record levels of recycled PET flowing into the United States, with Mexico being the largest supplier, replacing Canada.
Reprinted with Permission of Plastics News, Copyright Crain Communications Inc. Originally published in Plastics News Oct. 3, 2005.
Can trashing continues, despite industry efforts
WASHINGTON, DC — Data released in May 2005 by the Aluminum Association showed a slight increase in the aluminum can recycling rate--the first in 8 years. The 2004 rate, excluding imported scrap cans, was 45.1%, less than one percentage point above the 2003 rate of 44.3%, and 20 percentage points lower than the peak rate of 65% reached in 1992. In an Aluminum Association press release, Bill Barker, chairman of Can Manufacturers Institute said, "We are very pleased in the increase in the recycling rates. But there is still much work to do. We are looking forward to promot[ing] the values of recycling to consumers to keep this momentum."
Jenny Gitlitz, CRI’s research director, says the focus on the small rate increase obfuscates the environmental repercussions of can wasting that has continued largely unabated. “In 2003 we trashed 820,000 tons of cans; in 2004 we trashed
810,000 tons. That improvement is almost inconsequential on a global scale,” she said. “If we want to really curtail environmental damage—reduce bauxite mining, dam fewer rivers, build fewer smelters—aluminum can wasting needs to decrease by hundreds of thousands of tons, not tens of thousands.”
Container Deposits Work
Data acquired by CRI linked 42% of the rate increase to a rise in the California deposit value from 2 to 4 cents, and 30% of the increase to a rise in scrap can imports.
CRI executive director Pat Franklin said, “The industry insists that curbside recycling and public relations campaigns can increase recycling, but they ignore the fact that the only program proven to recycle 70-90% of the cans sold in any given market is the deposit system.”
Environmental Consequences
According to Gitlitz, “The direct and indirect environmental impacts of replacing cans trashed in 2004 include about 3.5 million tons of greenhouse gases; tens of thousands of tons of SOx and NOx emissions; strip mining over 3 million tons of bauxite; and a host of other industrial activities and pollutants in sensitive habitats worldwide.”
Economic Consequences of Inadequate Recycling:
Franklin said that there are also many lost business opportunities from the failure to recycle 55 billion cans a year. “At today’s prices, the cans trashed in 2004 could have fetched about $940 million. It’s money down the drain, energy down the drain, and resources down the drain. We call on the aluminum and beverage industries to implement dramatic efforts to increase recycling to 75% or above—rates that are common in deposit states—and a goal the industry set for itself in 1993.”
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