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Best Practices in PET Recycling Click here for printable PDF version Designing
A Community PET Plastic Issue: Properly designed PET plastic recycling collection programs greatly increase the quantity and quality of PET collected, and can reduce overall recycling system costs. Best Practice: To maximize recovery and value of PET plastic containers in a community's recycling collection program, two best practices should be followed in program design. The first is to establish an effective and ongoing consumer education program (the elements of which are described in the Consumer Education Best Practice), regardless of collection system design. Studies by the American Plastics Council indicate that participation in local recycling programs can increase 10% to 20% immediately following educational and promotional campaigns. However, it has also been shown that participation will decline unless the educational and promotional efforts are maintained. The content and design of consumer education programs can greatly impact both the quality and the quantity of PET plastics collected, resulting in a more cost-effective recovery program. The improved quality that results from properly designed and implemented consumer education programs ensures that the PET plastics that your program collects yield the highest market value for your community and can be recycled into new products that conserve natural resources. Numerous studies of recycling collection programs around the United States consistently demonstrate the more public education provided, the better the recycling collection program in terms of increasing the quantity of materials collected for recovery and reducing program costs. In addition, through effective consumer education, major sources of potential contaminants can be eliminated from the PET recycling process at the outset. This can greatly reduce the costs associated with sorting, removal and disposal of contaminants at recycling facilities that process PET plastic. This reduces the total cost of recycling post-consumer PET plastic bottles and containers back into new products, making it more competitive with raw materials made from virgin natural resources. Finally, effective public education programs emphasize the importance to consumers of purchasing products made from recycled post-consumer materials as the most important element to ensuring the long-term demand and economic infrastructure for the recovery of post-consumer PET plastic collected through their local programs.
Some of these organizations can provide detailed information and design criteria on crucial plastics collection program elements such as predicting material collection volumes, selecting and properly sizing collection containers and collection vehicles, practical suggestions on efficient routing, and revenue sharing options (for example, see How to Collect Plastics for Recycling, published by the American Plastics Council in 1995). These elements must be considered when designing your community's PET plastic recycling collection program to optimize material collection efficiencies and economics. The second best practice in designing your PET plastic recycling program is to designate all PET bottles and containers with screw-neck tops as acceptable for recycling. Numerous studies have indicated that accepting all PET containers for recycling (soft drink bottles and custom-PET containers), as opposed to programs that collect only PET carbonated beverage containers, will greatly increase the amount of PET plastic your program collects. In addition, programs that include all PET bottles and containers with screw-neck tops will collect greater quantities of soft drink containers than programs that designate PET soft drink containers only. References: American
Plastics Council (http://www.plasticsresource.com) National
Association for Plastic Container Recovery
(http://www.napcor.com) National
Soft Drink Association
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