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PET Recycling is in Trouble in the US — Really

“A year ago, it never would occur to me that we would be having a conversation about the challenges of PET recycling,” Keefe Harrison, CEO of The Recycling Partnership, said in the webinar “PET Packaging: Solving for an Out-of-Sync System” on Thursday, February 12.

She said that because polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the highest recycled packaging plastic, with more than 2 billion pounds of PET bottles collected for recycling annually in the US, according to The National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR). And recycled PET is also in demand for use in new packages.

But now imports are flooding the market, US PET reclamation facilities are shutting down, and domestic sourcing is in jeopardy.

My take on this … PET has been the poster child here in America for plastic packaging recycling and it’s in trouble. This does not bode well for the successful recycling of any packaging plastics in America. And if we don’t recycle, the waste crisis and climate shifts will worsen.

PET Recycling is in Trouble in the US — Really

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