The recently enacted “National Sword” Policy with respect to China’s scrap plastic material imports and the required level of contamination is clearly having an impact on the entire North American plastic recycling infrastructure. “Resource Recycling” reported in February that Chinese authorities have approved only “21,300 metric tons of post consumer plastics scrap in this year’s first batch of permits. For comparison, the China Scrap Plastics Association recently noted more than 3.5 million metric tons of scrap plastic were approved for import just in the first batch of permits issued for 2017.” That is a factor x160 reduction! It does not appear that the Chinese Government will change import requirements any time soon – or ever. With that in mind our industry needs to start taking post-consumer plastic recycling serious right here at home. This won’t be easy and we will require all the stakeholders in the value chain of designing, making and recycling plastic parts / packaging to change how we think about these materials.

While the 3R’s are still valid – reduce, reuse, recycle – we need to think more about plastic materials as a resource and as with every industrialized process consider to manage how these materials flow through our ecosystem. Post-Consumer Plastic materials are the most challenging applications with respect to plastic recycling. Yet broken down we are still talking for the most part about Polyethylene and Polypropylene molecules. Recycling technologies exist to deal with these materials. None need to go the landfill! For example: Post Consumer Film Recycling has been considered a non-desirable in North America. Most recycling programs don’t accept film – yet it presents a significant percentage of the plastic scrap we generate.

Many post consumer plastics are PET or polyethylene-terephthalate and need to be recycled to be food contact compliant. To learn about advanced PET recycling technology for food contact compliant recycling, read our guide here. 

Photo: Typical Plastic Film Bale (EREMA)

These materials – with the proper equipment – can be turned into valuable source material for new products again. The key steps are:

Graphic: From Shredded Material to Pellets (EREMA)

Especially the extrusion and pelletizing process determines the final quality of the material and hence determines what new products the original input material can be turned into again. During extrusion and pelletizing the remaining contaminants are removed, water and other volatiles are degassed and the melt is homogenized while maintaining maximum molecular weight. Through compounding these PCR materials can be further enhanced or used as is in a variety of applications such as garbage bags, decking, industrial containers, transport pallets, etc. With the right process post-consumer materials can be cleaned up and turned into new products again.

Photo: End product example (EREMA)