The Many Meanings of Recycling

When we talk about recycling plastics most of us think about separating plastic packages, bottles, or other products that we want to dispose of and putting them in a blue bin so they don’t end up in the landfill with other trash. A company comes and collects the plastics and we trust they are getting turned back into useful plastic products again somewhere, somehow – we did our part to help. For many of us, that’s recycling.

But it’s more complicated than that, and a lot of what we separated to recycle ends up in the landfill anyway, just taking a much longer route to get there. In fact, in the United States about 90% of the plastic waste produced and sorted into recycle bins ends up in landfill or incenerated.^1,2 The reason so much plastic ends up not getting converted back into new products is there’s many steps to make that happen than the capability of the plastic material itself to be melted down or reprocessed into a new product, which is called “technically recyclable.”

Economic Favorability – For plastic waste to get recycled in addition to being technically recyclable there must also be an economic benefit to recycling, that is the process of collecting, sorting, and preparing recycled plastics for use must be cost competitive with brand-new plastic products, and that’s often not the case.^3,4

Recycler Acceptance – The plastic products must also be acceptable to the recycling center’s sorting and recycling process. Many factors can prevent recycling like labels or other materials adhered to the product, very thin product shapes, plastics filled or mixed with other materials like fibers or metals, contaminants like dirt or chemicals inside the plastic containers, and so on. So a plastic product must be designed to be recycled and the recyclers need to have the right technology to sort and process those products, otherwise “acceptability” is a barrier to recycling.

Access to Recycling – Finally not everyone has access to the services of recyclers. While many urban and suburban areas have high enough population densities that people in these areas can find recycling services, many other rural or remote regions do not have access to recyclers.⁵ Only 73% of Americans have access to recycling, and many industrial operations are located away from cities and also lack access, so “accessibility” to recycling services becomes another significant barrier.

Telling It Like It Is

In the end, for a plastic product to get recycled, all of these factors need to come together for plastic products to get recycled. And many states are now passing legislation preventing producers and manufacturers from making unqualified claims that their products are “recyclable” unless they can provide evidence that it is actually happening. To make false or misleading claims about recycling or other environmental benefits or aspects of a product is called “Greenwashing” and state regulators are enforcing laws that prevent this from happening.⁶ It is important for a producer or marketer to be honest with their claims and transparent about the environmental benefits of their products including recyclability and recycled content claims. This can be done through audits and 3^rd party certifications that verify a company’s claims.⁷

And many states are putting regulations into place that are requiring producers and marketers of plastics and other packaging materials to pay fees to the state based on how much plastic waste they are generating?. These laws are known as “Extended Producer Responsibility” or EPR regulations.⁸ The money collected from these fees goes to recyclers to both expand accessibility, provide greater economic favorability, and improve technology for greater acceptance of plastics so that more can be recovered and recycled.

What Goes Around Comes Around

Just as important as getting plastics out of the landfills and back into circulation as recycled materials is producers maximizing the use of recycled materials in their products and designing those products to be easily recycled again. Not all recycled plastics are the same, there are a variety of kinds that have different values and benefits.

A Second Life For Packaging

First there is post-consumer recycled plastics or PCR. These are products that have had a use or purpose as a package or other plastic product and have been recovered out of a waste stream bound for landfill or incineration. The curb-side or community collected plastics fall into this category.

New Life For Industrial Waste

Second there is pre-consumer or post-industrial recycled plastics or PIR. These are byproducts or wastes from industrial processes that a manufacturer needs to dispose of and so offer to other manufacturers who can find a use for them. This material didn’t make it to the market or the general public but would still end up in a landfill or incinerated if the industry couldn’t find a way to recycle that material.

Ocean Plastic vs Ocean-Bound Plastic

There is also ocean plastic and ocean-bound plastic. One of the significant environmental impact of plastics is that about 3% of global plastic production or over 100 metric tons each year make their way out of uncontrolled landfills or from release into the environment and accumulate into the world’s oceans.¹¹ Since plastics don’t degrade in the environment this material accumulates in the environment, breaking down into small particles called microplastics and circulating through the water cycles and into our food and water. A number of scientific studies are being published finding microplastics in the human body and studying what effects those plastics might have on human health.¹² As a result there is an effort to recover plastics out of the ocean or out of regions where plastics have a risk of ending up in the ocean.

Ocean plastic is plastic recovered from the ocean, which is very costly and produces recycled plastics with inferior properties due to exposure to the environment. Ocean-bound plastic or OBP are plastics recovered from land in regions without controlled landfills and considered at high risk for those plastics ending up in the ocean.^9,10 Because both ocean plastic and ocean-bound plastics originate from consumer wastes these materials are considered PCR plastic. These are generally recovered by people picking through the landfill by hand and shipped from those regions to the US. There is a risk that ocean or ocean-bound plastic wasn’t collected in a socially responsible way or that it wasn’t from a high-risk area, so having a credible 3^rd party audit and certification for claims of ocean plastic or ocean-bound plastic content is very important to ensure credibility.^9,10

Plastics By The Numbers^16,17,18

In 2023 the world produced 414 million metric tons of plastics for all uses, about half of which goes to single use products or applications like packaging. Plastic production has historically grown 3% year over year; global plastic production in 2023 was roughly double the 220 million metric tons the world produced in 2003. By the year 2050 global plastic production is projected to double again and reach over 900 million metric tons.

Of the approximately 200 metric tons of single use plastics disposed of globally every year 49% of them or 98 million metric tons ends up in controlled landfills and 19% or 38 million metric tons is incinerated, becoming air pollution. 23% or 46 million metric tons ends up lost to the environment or in unmanaged dumps around the world where about 3% or 6 million metric tons makes it into the ocean every year. To put 6 million metric tons into perspective that’s roughly the equivalent with of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Only 9% of single use plastics globally or 18 million metric tons gets recovered and recycled back into plastic products again.

Being Part of the Solution

The demand for recycled plastics by producers is necessary for recyclers to have the economic feasibility to collect and process plastics. And it is important for manufacturers and producers to use as much recycled materials as they can and design their products to avoid acceptance barriers that might prevent recycling. So many states are enacting regulations requiring the use of PCR in products sold into their states for some categories of products. Retailers too are requiring products sold in their stores to include PCR for recyclability specifications.

Codebreaking

Each plastic product has a Resin Identification Code or RIC, this is a number that tells you what material the plastic product is made from. In most cases only materials with #1, #2, and #5 RICs are widely accepted for recycling. And most of the time only plastic bottles, pots, and tubs get accepted, but this varies greatly from location to location.¹⁴ So the best way to find out what recyclers in our area will accept and recycle is to check with your specific recycling service provider.

Credential Check

What you can do to be part of the system is to look for products that have both been designed for recycling and contain high percentages of recycled content. Watch out for greenwashing, which unfortunately is all too common. Make sure to look for products that have certification and 3^rd party audits that demonstrate their claims are true. Check out the manufacturer’s or producer’s website and look for 3^rd party certifications, validation of claims, or other sustainability related information to make sure you can trust they are doing the right thing.

See our recycling resources, our sustainability certifications, and learn what else we’re doing at: https://hc-companies.com/sustainable-vision/

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The Many Meanings of Recycling

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