New Eunomia Report Explores Plastic Recycling in North America

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): A new report released by Eunomia Environmental Research & Consulting provides a detailed analysis of plastic recycling in North America. The report identifies barriers to recycling in the region and recommends effective strategies to overcome these barriers.

Only approximately 24% of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) gets gathered for recycling in the United States, according to the analysis. Only 19% of this gets converted into new packaging, with the remaining 5% being wasted in the process of sorting or collection. According to the Eunomia research, more deposit return systems (DRS) should be installed nationwide in order to meet the national target of 30% recycled content.

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High-density polyethylene (HDPE) has a 29% collection rate and a 23% recycling rate. Out of all the plastic packaging resins, HDPE has the highest recycling rate. Additionally, after PET, it is the second most collected type of plastic packaging. Nearly three-fourths of the recovered plastic packaging in the United States is made up of these two polymers.

Polypropylene (PP) rigid packaging is the third most produced rigid plastic in the nation, with an annual production of over 1.2 million tons. Nevertheless, the material's recycling rate is just about 6%, which is significantly lower than that of PET and HDPE. In the meantime, PP's collection rate is 10%.