Plastic Bag Industry Invests $50 Million in Recycled Content Bags
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is aiming for plastic bags to be manufactured with 40 percent recycled content by 2015, which is expected to reduce waste by 300 million pounds per year.
Meeting the goal will require two primary objectives be met:
- The manufacturing process will need to be overhauled, so the plastic bag industry is looking to invest $50 million for this purpose
- The industry will need to collect more plastic bags to provide the additional recycled content, although no specific numbers have been mentioned
When plastic bags are collected for recycling, they are shredded into pellets that can be used for new bags as well as plastic lumber. Photo: Seattletimes.com
The ACC says plastic bag recycling has increased by 27 percent from 2005 to 2007, when 830 million pounds were collected. This was also before large cities and states developed bag recycling programs in retail stores.
When plastic bags are collected for recycling, they are shredded into pellets that can be used for new bags as well as plastic lumber. Recycled content plastic bags usually look more green or gray than those without plastic content.
One potential obstacle for plastic collection is the rise in popularity of reusable bags, which allow customers to shop without using plastic bags at all. Whole Foods estimates that reusable bag use has tripled in the last year alone.
The new campaign has already received support from several retailers, including Walgreens and Publix, as well as regional groups like the Arizona Retailers Association, the California Retailers Association, the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, the Ohio Grocers Association and the Texas Retailers Association.
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.
Skeptical Optimist
posted on April 30th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Ban plastic bags for good, get rid of the waste entirely!! Have you noticed how fast they collect under your sink when you save them for recycling?! TOO FAST! Find easy to carry totes, like those from ChicoBag.com, and you’ll never use another plastic bag. Always take your totes to the mall!!! And be firm with cashiers who start bagging your items into their plastic by default – make them correct their mistake, and place the items back into your tote instead. Don’t let them get away from running on half-consciousness, and stop shopping at those stores! Make an effort, you CAN be the spark that ignites change in this world! It only takes one domino to start a chain effect. Good luck, friends!!
Eric
posted on April 30th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Why only 40% by 2015? The ACC has been whining about bag bans for years now and promising that they’ll come up with some kind of recycling program. Well its not happening. They throw that 830 million pounds recycled around like it is some huge quantity. Its a pretty small quantity compared to the actual quantity of plastic bags landfilled, incinerated, or simply lost in the environment.
Come on plastics industry. Take the initiative and do something. Quit the whining and either take responsibility for your product or get out of the market. Your failure to take responsibility for the life cycle of your product literally dumps the problem of waste management on the consumer. And that’s WRONG.
MaggiesMom
posted on April 30th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I’m so glad the ACC is finally going to do something about plastic bags. I’ve been hearing about it for so long that I thought it was bull.
Why don’t they recycle ALL the bags and make them into the more sturdier bags that sell for around a dollar? Not enough profit??!
I don’t think you can ‘do away with all plastic bags’ since it takes so many, many years for them to ah, shall we say… Go Away.
I guess 40% is better than naught however we should all switch to something more sustainable.
I’m now beginning to switch to canvas and/or straw bags.
Kit Parks
posted on May 1st, 2009 at 5:39 pm
The dirty little secret that the ACC doesn’t highlight is that less than 2% of plastic bags get recycled (source: EPA). Also that many grocery collections barrels for ‘recycling the plastic bags’ actually goes into the regular trash to the landfill (as told to me by grocery store mamagers). They have the barrels to make it look good to their customers. The problem is that this particular plastic gums up most recycling equipment and is not allowed. The ACC’s lobbist efforts are to make the industry look ‘green’ so they can continue to make green. Convert to reusable bags, preferably our Ecoroot bags, but if not ours, someones. Plastic bags are a waste of our precious petroleum resources.
M
posted on May 2nd, 2009 at 4:27 am
I find that too many people use them for their trash bags. Have you ever noticed that the dog walkers have them in their hands as well? What can they use that will break down quickly in the land fill? That is where these bags wind up.
Eric
posted on May 5th, 2009 at 6:24 am
Most if not all of the ACC attempt to appear green is pure “greenwashing”. I don’t buy it. And they don’t appear to be sincere. Its just like the oil companies telling us we need more oil. Do we really?
The point of reducing waste is just that. Reduce waste. If you look closely at your personal waste stream, you will most likely start to realize where you can reduce, reuse, and recycle. If you think really hard, you’ll also realize that you don’t really need plastic bags for your garbage. Most of the wet things we put in our trash are food scraps which shouldn’t be in there anyway. Those can be composted. We also trash paper towels. Why not just buy a handful of cloth towels and quit buying the paper towels. No more wet paper towels in the trash. Pretty soon you don’t have much of a need for a trash can let alone the plastic bag.
Dogs however are another question. They do make biodegradable bags for this exact use. Note the difference between “degradable” and “biodegradable”. Most plastics are “degradable”, but don’t break down quickly or into basic natural components. They just degrade into smaller pieces. Biodegradable bags are generally made from a plant based material, so they do biodegrade and break down in to basic components.
Kerry Crumbliss
posted on May 17th, 2009 at 3:57 am
TOP 10 MYTHS ABOUT PLASTIC GROCERY BAGS
Myth #1: Plastic bag bans are spreading like wildfire across the country.
Fact: No. In fact, plastic bags have not been banned anywhere, not even in San Francisco. San
Francisco is requiring that consumers use compostable plastic bags instead of 100% recyclable
bags. Contrary to popular belief, there is a growing movement to increase access to recycle
plastic bags – not eliminate them. New Jersey, Connecticut, and cities in California have all
taken recent action to table legislation that would ban certain types of plastic bags and instead
are now looking to implement plastic bag recycling programs.
Myth #2: Paper grocery bags are a better environmental choice than plastic bags.
Fact: Plastic bags are 100% recyclable and for all environmental impacts related to air emissions,
water emissions and solid waste – those of paper bags are significantly greater than that of
plastic grocery bags:
• Plastic bags use 40% less energy to produce and generate 80% less solid waste than
paper1
• Paper bags generate 70% more emissions, and 50 times more water pollutants than
plastic bags.2
• Even paper bags made from 100% recycled fiber use more fossil fuels than plastic bags3
Myth #3: Plastic bags are the largest component of landfills and the primary component of litter.
Fact: The item most frequently encountered in landfills is paper—on average, it accounts for more
than 40% of a landfill’s contents.4 Newspapers alone take up as much as 13% of landfill space.5
Cigarette butts, chewing gum, and candy wrappers account for about 95% of all litter in the
English-speaking world.6 Education, as well as responsible use and disposal of all materials and
products, is the key to reducing litter.
Myth #4: Plastic grocery bags take 1,000 years to decompose in landfills.
Fact: Virtually nothing – not paper, food, plastic or even compostable or bio degradable products –
decompose in today’s landfills, because they are actually designed to be as stable and dry as
possible. Research by William Rathje, who runs the Garbage Project, has shown that when
excavated from a landfill, newspapers from the 1960s can be intact and readable.
Myth #5: Plastic bags feed America’s addiction to oil.
Fact: Plastic bags are extraordinarily energy-efficient to manufacture. Less than .05% of a barrel of
oil goes into making all the plastic bags used in the US while 93% – 95% of every barrel of
crude oil is burned for fuel and heating purposes.7 Although they are made from natural gas or
oil, plastic bags actually consume less fossil fuels during their lifetime than do compostable
plastic and paper bags.8
-moreMyth
#6: Compostable bags can degrade in backyard composts.
Fact: In order to breakdown, compostable bags must be sent to an industrial composting facility, not
backyard piles or municipal composting centers. There are very few of these facilities in the U.S.
and where these facilities are not available, compostable bags will sit in landfills because they
can’t be recycled.
Myth #7: For people who live near water, paper bags are the environmentally friendly choice to
protect marine wildlife.
Fact: Since paper bag production has more negative environmental impacts related to air emissions,
water emissions and solid waste than plastic grocery bags, they’re not a solution. Recycling and
proper disposal of all products would make sure that any threat to the environment, including
wildlife, would be reduced.
Myth #8: Low recycling rates for plastic bags prove recycling them doesn’t work.
Fact: Recycling does work. The problem is not everyone knows that plastic grocery bags are 100%
recyclable and not everyone has access to plastic bag recycling in their community. A national
at-store plastic bag recycling program would bring the recycling solution to everyone and
increase rates. One Southern supermarket chain has such a program, and recycles more than
20% of the volume of plastic bags that it provides to customers.
Myth #9: Recycling plastic bags is too expensive.
Fact: The price of not recycling them is high. Recycling can help save resources and minimize the
amount of waste going to landfills. Also, recycling helps reduce litter, as bags are contained and
stored. Its worth noting that it takes 91% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes
to recycle a pound of paper.9
Myth #10: There’s no demand for recycled plastic.
Fact: Today there is a growing market for recycled plastic that didn’t exist 15 years ago. It’s also
cheaper now to use recycled plastic than to obtain new materials, increasing potential for more
recycling of used plastic bags. Recycled plastic grocery and shopping bags are currently being
made into new consumer products such as clean new plastic shopping bags, outdoor decking
and railing products.
# # #
1 U.S. EPA website, (www.epa.gov/region1/communities/shopbags.html)
2 Ibid
3 REPA of Polyethylene and Unbleached Paper Grocery Sacks, Prepared for the Solid Waste Council, Franklin Associates Report, June 1990
4 U.S. EPA website, (www.epa.gov/msw/paper.htm)
5 U.S. EPA website, ( http://www.epa.gov/msw/faq.htm)
6 Litter Composition Survey of England, October 2004, produced by ENCAMS for INCPEN http://www.incpen.org/pages/userdata/incp/LitterCompSurvey24Jan2005.pdf).
7 Chemical Market Associates, Inc.
8 Évaluation des impacts environnementaux des sacs de caisse Carrefour (Evaluation of the Environmental Impact of Carrefour Merchandise Bags), Prepared by Price-
Waterhouse-Coopers/Ecobilan (EcoBalance), February 2004, #300940BE8, (www.ademe.fr/htdocs/actualite/rapport_carrefour_post_revue_critique_v4.pdf).
9 U.S. EPA website, (www.epa.gov/region1/communities/shopbags.html)
Eric
posted on May 19th, 2009 at 8:27 am
To be transparent, who do you work for Kerry?
The real fact number one is that neither plastic or paper bags need to be created. They are for CONVENIENCE only and don’t benefit the consumer or the environment at all. Use reusable bags period.
“The problem is not everyone knows that plastic grocery bags are 100% recyclable and not everyone has access to plastic bag recycling in their community.” That means that recycling isn’t working. If the bags didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be a need to recycle them. Hence the point of reduction.
Remember. REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE. In that order. Don’t even take a bag if you don’t need it. Second, bring your own if you need a bag.
Malaik Chunara
posted on January 20th, 2011 at 11:24 am
Very soon i will teach whole U.S.A. to recycle Grocery Bag and other bags, Please dont send to Land fill.Just wait few month, I am going to creat almost 100000 Jobs, plus almost $ One Billion for Education Schlorship for 50000 Students $10000 for each Student who will be eligiablefor Education in Plastic Industry/become a Plastic Engineers. there fore please do not throw your Plastic Grocery, We can Recycle to save Earth/enviourment to gether. Thanks