U.S. plastic film recycling market grows slowly

"2012 American Plastic Bag & Plastic Film Reuse Report" pointed out that the recycling volume of plastic packaging materials such as plastic bags and plastic films in the United States continued to increase. In 2012, the total volume exceeded 1 billion pounds, which was 1.01 times that of 2011. The data comes from 39 exporters and 21 processors in the United States and Canada. In 2012, at least 1.02 billion pounds of plastic film waste was produced, an increase of 56% from 2005. The plastic films included in the report include plastic bags, cling films, and shrink films.

From the report, it can be seen that although the expected value has not been reached, plastic film recycling projects are still promising. At least 18,000 stores and branches in the United States are engaged in the recycling of plastic bags and plastic films. This shows that the recycling of plastic bags and plastic films has been fully carried out in the United States and has achieved great results. In addition, the existing infrastructure expands capabilities to capture significantly increased waste plastic film, as more and more industrial and commercial companies choose to use recyclable shrink film and logistics transport packaging.

According to relevant experts in the United States, as more and more people understand plastics, they believe that plastics are also a valuable resource and cannot be easily wasted. More and more Americans have adopted accepted recycled plastic bags and films. . The American Chemicals Council worked with the US retailers and the units and communities engaged in the recycling and processing of plastics to promote the recycling of plastic bags and have the confidence to further increase its recycling efficiency in the future. Used plastic bags and plastic films can be recycled into many valuable products and even processed into new plastic bags.

Pressure from consumers, environmental advocates, and retailers to make production of plastic bag manufacturers that account for more than 80% of the United States solemnly promised on April 22, 2009 “Earth Day”: to make plastic bags by 2015 Recovery rate reaches 40%. Recently, some US cities have restricted the use of plastic bags, and many retailers have also indicated that they will substantially reduce the amount of plastic bags. The main reason that people no longer favor plastic bags is that such products often take hundreds of years to degrade. It is reported that the output value of plastic bags in the United States alone amounts to 1 billion U.S. dollars per year, and the output is about 90 billion.
The president of the American Chemical Industry Council, Card Dooley, said that this action in the plastics industry indicates that the industry will speed up the recycling of plastic bags. According to the 2015 recycling rate of 40%, it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 463 million pounds per year. 300 million pounds of waste. To achieve the above goals, the plastic bag industry needs to invest 50 million US dollars to transform the production process, and also need to recycle 470 million pounds of renewable plastic bags every year to produce new plastic bags. “This is an important commitment of industry to reduce waste and protect the environment,” said Matthew McKenna, chairman of the United States, a non-profit environmental organization that “makes the United States beautiful forever”. The agency receives US Chemicals every year. Council donation.

The recycled polyethylene film is often used in the manufacture of durable plastics and composite wood (for outdoor decks and fences), construction materials, garden tools, crates, pipes and new packaging films such as plastic bags.

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