US PET Recycling Rate Witnessed Drastic Decline in 2016

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR), in association with the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) has released a new report titled “Postconsumer PET Container Recycling Activity in 2016” on PET recycling rates in the US during the previous year. The report suggests significant drop in PET recycling activity and tonnage of material collected for recycling in the US. This is the third consecutive year of decline for recycling rates.

According to the report, 6,172 million pounds of PET bottles and jars were sold into the US marketplace in 2016. This is higher by over 3% when compared with the previous year. The negative demand growth due to falling sales of carbonated soft drinks was more than offset by increased sales of other beverage categories including tea, sports drinks and juices.

The NAPCOR-APR report states that recycling rate dropped to 28.4% in 2016 from 30.1% in 2015. Out of the 6,172 million pounds of PET bottles sold into the market place, nearly 1,753 million pounds were collected through recycling programs to be processed either by domestic or foreign recycling facilities. The total collection volume has dropped by 2.4% as compared to 2015, mainly on account of decline in volumes outside of California and the drop in collection volume at curbside. The collection volumes had totaled 1.79 million pounds in 2015 and had hit an all-time high of 1.81 million pounds in 2014.

The purchase by the US reclaimers remained virtually flat at 1,374 million pounds. The domestic purchase was supplemented by imports of around 70 million pounds of post-consumer bottles or dirty flake, mainly from Canada and Mexico, thereby making the total bottles used by US reclaimers stand at 1,444 million pounds.

Meantime, the US exported a total of 379 million pounds of post consumer bottles to reclaimers outside of the US. This represents just 22% of the total bottle collections. The export percentage dropped to the lowest levels since 2000. The exports to the Canadian reclaimers dropped from 75 million pounds in 2015 to 68 million pounds in 2016. Also, Far East exports dropped from 335 million pounds to 295 million pounds over the year.

The report states that 2016 was the worst year in history for PET reclaimers in the US. The year saw virgin PET resin prices hitting historic lows, thus making life difficult for many reclaimers. A total of nearly 400 million pounds of PET reclamation operating capacity went offline during the year. The survivors reported squeezed margins.