Plastic Bag Recycling Up Across U.S.
Driven by greater consumer access to recycling programs and new markets for recycled materials, plastic bag and film recycling increased across the U.S. in 2007, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
The latest National Post-Consumer Recycled Plastic Bags and Film Report by Moore Recycling Associates, Inc. estimated 830,180,000 pounds of post-consumer film (including plastic bags and product wraps) was recovered, a 27 percent increase from 2005.
You can have an impact on plastic bag waste by not only properly recycling these common items, but reducing your use of them as well. Photo: Greenerpractices.wordpress.com
Since these reports are for 2007, they do not take into account the numerous mandatory bag recycling laws and initiatives various states have put in place since then. Additionally, the report noted the challenges in measuring export markets for plastic film, consequently having incomplete data for a growing sector of plastic film recycling.
“More Americans are recycling plastic bags and film than ever before, driven by a growing recognition that plastic is a valuable resource – too valuable to waste,” said Steve Russell, managing director for ACC’s Plastics Division. “Recovered plastic bags and wraps can be recycled into many useful products, including durable backyard decking, fencing, railings, shopping carts and, of course, new bags.”
Many companies are built on the premise of utilizing recycled plastic bags and films to create the new products that Russell mentioned, like TREX, who manufactures recycled construction materials. In fact, Dave Heglas of TREX noted that the company recycled over 2.5 billion pounds of plastic over the last decade.
While composite lumber continues to be the major market for recycled plastic bags and film, there has also been a significant increase in the amount of post-consumer recycled film that went into new film and sheet applications.
Hilex Poly, a leading plastic bag manufacturer, established a program that recycles old bags into new ones called Bag-2-Bag®. In 2008, Hilex recycled the equivalent of 400 million bags and reduced its use of new material by eight million pounds.
Although many local recylers collect plastic #2 (HDPE) and plastic #4 (LDPE), from which most plastic bags are made, this form of these popular plastics is not accepted in many curbside programs. This exception in collection has caused the creation of numerous recycling programs at retail and grocery stores to mitigate the waste from this particular type of plastic. Additionally, many consumers are converting to reusable bags in place of disposable ones.
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments. The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
poddi
posted on February 25th, 2009 at 5:11 am
I have written an article on plastic on the Saltaire history world heritage site read it if you want its good
leslie
posted on July 18th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
All these Plastic articles are taking me around in circles. I see #4 mentioned as ‘bags’ and ‘film’.. what about the #4 packaging material now being made (similar to Styrofoam but has #4 LDPE symbol on it)?? Where can I recycle these? Help!
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posted on August 29th, 2009 at 9:01 am
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posted on October 7th, 2009 at 7:55 am
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Austin L Miller
posted on October 13th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Hi I’m a grocery clerk/clone that has bagged groceries for 36 years and seen it all (paper, boxes, plastic)…we need to react to our re-cycling problem NOW, perferably YESTERDAY…Being a musician also I couldn’t help writing a song “Bag It” ’bout this situation and some of the ignorant excuses that people come up with to defend non-recycling practises…Check out this song listen to it, and if you need/want a copy(mp3) for any projects, pages or e-mail messages, just drop me an e-mail and I’ll send you an mp3 to help spread the word any way possible …ThanX~Austn austinlmiller@comcast.net