SLIPPING THROUGH THE CRACKS

摘要

The plastics recycling industry is under pressure to deliver more quality material to end users. As it turns out, key gains could be made just by cutting down on what's inadvertently lost in the recycling process. A discrepancy between PET bale yield data and real-world results recently led plastics recycling experts in California to explore how much clean, usable plastic is being improperly rejected alongside actual contaminants. Quantifying the loss of clean material that's rejected during the sorting process is the first step to bringing that material back into th< reclamation stream. That's going to be particularly important in the coming years: Brand owners have made major commitments to use more recycled plastic in the near future, creating significantly more demand for recycled PET. This projected demand spike has generated concern that bale supply will fall far short of meeting the need. The California study, carried out by the Plastic Recycling Corporation of California (PRCC), offers insight into how much good, clean material already in the system is leaking out during PET processing. The work also led to conclusions about how to improve bale yield overall. And most of the insights are applicable to plastic recycling entities everywhere.