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The Association of Plastic Recyclers noted a study undertaken by Closed Loop Partners that addresses recycling system interventions that could reduce the cost of processing post-consumer PET compared to producing virgin resin.

The study is titled:

Cleaning the rPET Stream: How We Scale Post-Consumer Recycled PET in the US (“Study”)

The motivation for the Study is the concern that less than 30% of the PET used in bottles and jars is recovered in the United States. Further, the Study states that only 6% is re-used as rPET in new bottles. The Study notes that this is despite the fact that PET is the most common resin type used in plastic packaging and is accepted in most United States municipal recycling programs.

As a result, the Study focuses on the following question:

How can we address the stark under-performance of Pet recycling through investment in solutions that provide long-term benefits to the system overall?

The Study identifies what it characterizes as a “suite of interventions” that would improve the cost structure of rPET and benefit MRFs, reprocessors, and end-users. The interventions identified are claimed to potentially increase nationally by 6% the recycling rate of PET. As to bottle-to-bottle processes, the Study claims to have identified interventions that:

. . . effectively improve yield from residential curbside collection by more than 20% and lower costs of rPET processing by 10%.

The components of the Study include:

• Recent trends in rPET capacity in North America
• rPET vs. Virgin Production Processes
• What drives costs?
• Interventions that work
• What’s next?

A copy of the Study can be downloaded here.