Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | P | Plastics News

US recycling more plastic; Drop in resin sales helps HDPE, PET recycling rates.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Mike Verespej

In absolute pounds, the number of high density polyethylene and PET bottles recycled continued to increase in 2008, and so did the HDPE and PET recycling rates.

But the amount of pounds added to the recycling stream in 2008 for reclaimers was less than in 2007, and the primary reason that those recycling rates increased was because sales of both virgin HDPE and PET resins fell in 2008.

HDPE bottle resin sales decreased by 304 million pounds, or 8.6 percent, and PET resin sales decreased by 317 million pounds, or 5.6 percent. The recycling rate is calculated by dividing the number of pounds recycled by the number of pounds sold.

"That is why the recycling rates went up, said Tamsin Ettefagh, vice president of HDPE recycler Envision Plastics Inc. in Reidsville, N.C. "The denominator used is smaller because the number of containers and the weight of individual containers has dropped.

Had resin sales stayed flat, the HDPE recycling rate would have risen only marginally from 26 percent in 2007, to 26.5 percent in 2008, instead of jumping as it did to 29 percent. Likewise, the PET recycling rate, which went from 24.6 percent to 27 percent its highest level since 1997 would have only increased to 25.6 percent.

The all-bottle recycling rate, which rose from 24.4 percent in 2007 to 27 percent in 2008, would...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!