Recycling continued post-consumer plastics

Post-consumer plastic color-measurement technology control is used in recycling of post-consumer plastics (PCPs). As the demand increased for consistent natural and other colors of particularly recycled PET and HDPE, the need for standardization and codification of color measurement based on analytical data continued to be critical. In the past the human eye was the only means of determining color quality. Samples... 

Polyethylene terephthalate and HDPE bottles continue to comprise over 96% of the United States plastic bottle market. In 2011, the total annual post-consumer plastic bottles recycled in the United States increased to an all-time high of 2624 million pounds. The total bottle collection rate was 28.9% for 2011. Plastic bottles with recycling codes 3 to 7 makeup only 3.5% of the plastic bottle market. Of these bottles, polypropylene bottles were recycled at a rate of 2.2% and PVC recycled bottles were recycled at a rate of 0.8% in 2011 (Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers and the American Chemistry Council 2011). 

Apart from the reprocessors of post consumer plastics, other companies have continued to specialize in waste plastics from industrial and commercial operations. The recycling of plastic pallet wrap is expanding across the country. Used electrical wire and cable is being reprocessed primarily for the recovery of metals however a number of specialized operations recycle the cable insulators, polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride. Similarly a few facilities exist to recycle waste automotive trim and foam polystyrene packaging. A considerable effort is being expended to find applications for plastic auto shredder residue which is the by product of the automobile recycling industry which currently recovers metals from end of life automobiles. At present viable applications are still understudy and current residues continue to be landfilled. 

Gajanan Bhat (The University of Tennessee in Knoxville) who contributed the chapter on Processing of Post-Consumer Recycled Plastics, writes, Plastics continue to replace traditional materials in many applications and are being used in several new products. Many advantages of plastics in their performance as well as in the ease of their fabrication have contributed to their growth. Since... 

Using true post consumer waste means the bottles have to be cleaned (labels must be removed because labels often contain PVC) and sorted. That s almost always done in a low labor rate country since only human labor can be used. Add to that the fact that the rate of bottle recycling is rather low - in the United States less than 6% of all waste plastic gets recycled. The low recycling rate doesn t mean we shouldn t continue to try, but in the United States where it s relatively easy to recycle a bottle and the population is relatively well educated in the intricacies of the various resin codes, doesn t it make you wonder how successful we might be with recycling efforts in other parts of the world ... 

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